The Turkish football club Galatasaray will pursue legal measures against Fenerbahce manager Jose Mourinho because they believe he made racist statements.
“Since the commencement of his managerial duties in Turkey, Fenerbahce manager Jose Mourinho has persistently issued derogatory statements directed towards the Turkish people.” Galatasaray said in a statement.
“Today, his discourse has escalated beyond merely immoral comments into unequivocally inhumane rhetoric.
“We hereby formally declare our intention to initiate criminal proceedings concerning the racist statements made by Jose Mourinho, and shall accordingly submit official complaints to UEFA and FIFA.” Galatasaray added.
Mourinho has Faces criticism for his offensive statements that occurred during the Istanbul derby match where Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic was selected specifically for the game.
The Portuguese manager observed the staff at Galatasaray’s technical area performing monkey-like movements from their positions on the bench during the first half of the match following Yusuf Akcicek’s tackle on a player.
Mourinho expressed his appreciation for Vincic’s work following the match which ended without goals and featured seven yellow cards from a referee at Champions League standards.
The former Chelsea and Manchester United manager said that a match controlled by a Turkish referee would have resulted in a catastrophic outcome.
“I went to the referee’s dressing room after the game. The fourth official was there – a Turkish referee – I told him if you are the referee it would be a disaster.” Mourinho said.
On Tuesday morning Fenerbahce released a statement backing Mourinho which pointed out his match-day statements were deliberately twisted out of context by the media.
“A statement made by our Technical Director Jose Mourinho after the match was completely taken out of context and an attempt was made to deliberately distort it,” the club said in a statement.
