Jose Mourinho: Racism accusations backfired - Galatasaray didn't know my African connections

6 March 2025, 07:24 | Updated: 6 March 2025, 20:00

Jose Mourinho has spoken for the first time, exclusively to Sky Sports News, about the racism allegation made against him.

Despite the furore, he says he felt calm and relaxed throughout because he feels the allegation, made by Galatasaray after the Istanbul derby with his Fenerbahce side, backfired.

"They were not clever in the way they attacked me, because they didn't know my past," he says.

"They didn't know my connections with Africa, with African people and African players and African charities.

"So instead of going against me, I think it boomeranged and went against them.

"Everyone knows who I am as a person. Everybody knows my bad qualities, but that is not one of my bad qualities. Exactly the opposite!

"The most important thing is I know who I am, and the attack accusing racism was a bad choice."

On the accusation, he says: "I just felt: how could they go so low?"

Mourinho, in the press conference after the 0-0 draw last Monday, accused the Galatasaray bench of "jumping like monkeys" to try and get his 19-year-old central defender Yusuf Akcicek sent off early in the game.

He was referring to head coach Okan Buruk.

I ask whether, in hindsight, Mourinho regrets the words he used. Was the choice of words clumsy?

Mourinho paused for a moment and thought. Then he shook his head, because he found Buruk's touchline antics hard to take.

"I cannot drop to his level," he says.

"Sometimes I do, and I ask myself, 'Why did you do it Jose? Why did you drop to that level?'"

He thinks a bit more. Then adds: "It was just sad."

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