Jose Mourinho at Fenerbahce – From the trivial, to the farcical, to the contentious

Light a match and throw it on some fuel, empty a bag of Mentos into a bottle of fizzy pop, or try and swallow a spoonful of cinnamon; all of these actions will cause a reaction. None will end well, but that probably won’t stop you watching.

Then there’s Jose Mourinho and Fenerbahce.

To be fair to Mourinho, he said he wanted to raise the profile of the Turkish game when moving to one of the most volatile leagues in world football last summer. Yep, Istanbul is definitely getting plenty of air time, but not for its beautiful ancient architecture, sumptuous cuisine or fascinating mix of European and Asian cultures. Eyes are turning there because of the increasingly controversial actions of a once-great football manager.

Despite now operating in a league that Opta’s Power Rankings deem to be just the 18th strongest in the world (below the Czech top flight and the second tiers in England and Germany), Mourinho continues to generate headlines in a manner that few others can.

From the trivial (placing a laptop in front of a broadcast camera to protest his team’s disallowed goal by showing a slow-motion replay) to the farcical (failing to appear at a post-match press conference having been made to wait more than an hour for rival Galatasaray manager Okan Buruk to finish his) to the contentious (banned and fined for questioning the impartiality of referees), it’s rarely been dull.

💻 Jose Mourinho’dan laptoplu tepki! #ANTvFB #beINSPORTS pic.twitter.com/mN1RzXdc5x

— beIN SPORTS Türkiye (@beINSPORTS_TR) September 29, 2024

And it was never going to be. Mourinho purposely chose Fenerbahce and Istanbul to chase the buzz and thrill he gets from management, from competing and from the big stage.

Like a moth to a flame or a bull to a red rag, Mourinho courts carnage. If you’ve spent time in Rome or Istanbul on a matchday, you’ll know it’s not exactly Fulham away, and Mourinho appears to be choosing cities and teams that fuel his fire. “They have to be crazy,” he said of Fenerbahce’s supporters at his unveiling, akin to asking grass to be green. “That passion is part of my motivation.”

Even for Mourinho, though, the latest furore is a big one.

He was this week banned for four matches and fined more than £35,000 for comments made following Monday’s tempestuous 0-0 draw against league leaders and city neighbours Galatasaray.

Two of those games were for remarks about the fourth official, and two were for what Galatasaray claimed to be “racist statements”.

A statement from the Turkish Football Federation said that Mourinho had “accused Turkish football of chaos and disorder with insulting and offensive statements towards both the Turkish football community and all Turkish referees”.

“I have to thank the referee,” Mourinho had said of the Slovenian who took charge of the match after both clubs requested a foreign official. “After the big dive in the first minute and their (Galatasaray’s) bench jumping like monkeys on top of each other.

“If it was a Turkish referee, you would have a yellow card after one minute, and after five minutes, I would have to change him. Thankfully, it was a perfect experience for him.”

The use of the word monkeys led Galatasaray to threaten to complain to UEFA and FIFA and initiate criminal proceedings against Mourinho for “unequivocally inhumane rhetoric”. They also accused Mourinho of making “derogatory statements directed towards the Turkish people” during the season.

In response, Fenerbahce countered: “As any rational person can see and understand these expressions used by Jose Mourinho during the match to describe the overreaction of the opposing team’s technical committee to the referee’s decisions cannot be associated with racism in any way.

“Trying to portray this discourse as a racist discourse is a completely malicious approach.”

In a statement on their website on Friday, Fenerbahce said Mourinho had filed a moral compensation lawsuit against Galatasaray for 1,907,000 Turkish Liras (£41,467, $52,212) due to an “attack on his personal rights”.

Plenty have come to Mourinho’s defence, including Didier Drogba, the former Galatasaray striker who Mourinho managed at Chelsea.

“You know how proud I was to wear the yellow and red jersey and my love for the most decorated club in Turkey,” he said on X.

“We all know how passionate and heated rivalries can be, and I’ve been lucky enough to experience it.

“I’ve seen the recent comments about Jose Mourinho. Trust me when I tell you I have known Jose for 25 years and he is not a racist and history (past and recent) is there to prove it.

“How can my ‘Dad’ be a racist. Come on guys.”

Drogba’s ex-Chelsea team-mate Michael Essien also posted a picture of the pair and Mourinho on Instagram with a few heart emojis thrown in for support.

While the racism accusations have only come from Galatasaray, controversies over referees have been at the centre not just of Mourinho’s tenure, but of Turkish football generally in the last 18 months or so.

Accusations of bias or corruption are pretty incessant, hence drafting in a Slovenian for a high-profile Turkish match.

Last season, Fenerbahce president Ali Koc accused VAR officials of bias against his club, leading to the league hiring foreign VAR officials for the rest of the campaign.

That was just the tip of the iceberg, after Ankaragucu president Faruk Koca walked onto the pitch and punched Halil Umut Meler in the head, while a game was forfeited after Istanbulspor players were instructed to leave the field in protest at a penalty not being awarded against Trabzonspor.

GO DEEPER

Halil Umut Meler attack and the day Turkish football descended into chaos

All of which almost makes you appreciate the Premier League and its VAR officials. Almost.

For his part, Mourinho has repeatedly condemned standards of refereeing, not least after Fenerbahce won a cup game with a 102nd-minute winner (he, of course, celebrated with an attempted knee slide) and he went on a rant because Trabzonspor had been awarded two penalties after VAR consultations.

“I blame the Fenerbahce people that brought me here,” Mourinho said at the time. “They told me only half of the truth.

“They didn’t tell me the whole truth because if they told me the whole truth, I wouldn’t come.

“But, with half of the truth and my boys, we fight opponents and the system.”

Conspiracies, paranoia and endless accusations — it’s difficult to predict what’s next.

Mourinho attempts a knee slide as his team celebrate a cup win over Trabzonspor (Huseyin Yavuz/Getty Images)

In between all that, Mourinho has also found time to take charge of a few football matches. His off-field escapades have overshadowed, at least to the wider football world, what has been a disappointing season.

Fenerbahce are currently six points behind unbeaten table-toppers Galatasaray, representing a drop-off in performance from last season when they improbably earned a whopping 99 points but still finished behind their hated rivals on 102.

Mourinho’s team have choked in the games that have really mattered. Domestically, they lost against and drew with Galatasaray and were beaten by Besiktas. In Europe, after Lille beat them in their Champions League qualifier, Fenerbahce struggled in the Europa League group stage with just two victories from eight matches.

They squeaked through in 24th place, the final qualifying spot, having to rely on Swedish side Elfsborg not getting a draw at his old side Tottenham Hotspur on Matchday eight — they lost, 3-0 — otherwise Fenerbahce would have been knocked out having only drawn at Midtjylland.

Mourinho must now rally his troops — including former Premier League players Sofyan Amrabat, Fred, Allan Saint-Maximin, Diego Carlos and Edin Dzeko — for a clash against Rangers in the last 16.

Tantalisingly, if they overcome the Scottish side there is a scenario where Mourinho can take on and beat his last three clubs in management — Roma in the quarter-finals, Manchester United in the semis and Spurs in the final. If he somehow does that, you can imagine posting a video on Instagram of giving the finger to the club badges of the three clubs while smoking a cigar and announcing his retirement but, given Fenerbahce’s form, that feels pretty unlikely.

What does not feel unlikely is that Mourinho will be back in the headlines again before too long.

(Top photo: Serhat Cagdas/Getty Images)