European football governing body, UEFA, has slammed Jose Mourinho with a suspended one-match ban from European competitions for being responsible for the late kick-off of Tottenham‘s Europa League match against Royal Antwerp on October 29, 2020.
This means that the Tottenham coach will not serve the match ban as far as he does not commit the same offense within 12 months.
UEFA‘s Control, Ethics, and Disciplinary body said the ban was “deferred for a probationary period of one year, starting from the date of the present decision”.
Tottenham was also slammed with 25,000 euros fine for the same offense. In addition to that, Spurs will have to pay extra 3,000 euros for a breach of UEFA’s equipment regulations.
As at the time of publishing this report, it has not been made clear how Jose Mourinho and Tottenham were responsible for the few minutes delay in the kick-off of the match which took place at Royal Antwerp’s home ground in Belgium. Mourinho or Tottenham are yet to officially react to the ban and the fine.
The Europa League match in question ended with a stunning defeat for Mourinho and his boys as the Belgium side ran away with a 1-0 victory which left the Portuguese tactician very critical of his players.
Jose Mourinho and some of his major fines/ban
Jose Mourinho is not new to being banned or fine by UEFA and domestic league bodies. Since he came to England to coach Chelsea in 2004, the Portuguese tactician has had reasons to suffer a couple of bans and fines.
One of his most famous bans happened in 2005 while at Chelsea. UEFA had to ban Mourinho from Chelsea’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final home and away matches against Bayern Munich for alleging that referee Anders Frisk who officiated Chelsea’s Champions League match against Barcelona spoke to the then manager of Barcelona, Frank Rijkaard, at half-time in the first leg.
Mourinho was also fined about £9,000, while Chelsea was fined £33,300 for the allegation.
Mourinho revealed that he had to be sneaked into Chelsea’s locker room in the match against Bayern Munich to pass instructions to his players despite the ban.
“I go to the dressing room during the day so I was there from midday and the game is seven o’clock. I just want to be in the dressing room when the players arrive,” Mourinho told beIN Sports.
“I went there and nobody saw me. The problem was to leave after. And Stewart Bannister the kit man put me in the basket. It was a little bit open so I could breathe.
“But when he is taking it outside the dressing room, the UEFA guys were following and desperate to find me so he closed the box and I couldn’t breathe! When he opened the box I was dying! I am serious! I was claustrophobic, I promise! It’s true!”
Chelsea ended up qualifying for the semi-finals stage of the competition 6-5 on aggregate.
In 2015, Jose Mourinho was slammed with a suspended one-match ban and £50,000 fine while at Chelsea for criticizing a referee after a match in which Chelsea lost 3-1 at home to Southampton on October 3, 2015.
While at Manchester United, Jose Mourinho was also slammed with a one-match touchline ban and was fined £58,000 in November 2016 for using abusive language on referee Mark Clattenburg who officiated Manchester United goalless draw with Burnley.
Two years since this iconic Jose Mourinho celebration in Turin 👂
— 433 (@433) November 7, 2020
pic.twitter.com/bCAB0rlrvA
