José Mourinho has spoken to Corriere dello Sport about a number of developments in football. He discusses his upcoming meeting with former club AS Roma, the legal situation of Manchester City and his relationships with referees.Asked about the Manchester City case, Mourinho laughed and used irony to underline how slowly the process is moving. “I’d rather laugh a bit, because I think it will come to an end.”Then Mourinho pointed to journalist Ivan Zazzaroni and said: “But we two, who are in our sixties, have to be lucky enough to still be here when the final verdict comes. Now there will be a verdict, and then there will be an appeal…”The Portuguese puts his difficult relationship with refereeing down to bad luck, arguing that his spells at various clubs coincided with suspicious and or convicted cases.Next matchesBARLaLiga11 Oct 202600:30GETRMALaLiga11 Oct 202603:00VILAt Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, for example, he worked in the era in which Manchester City broke 114 financial rules. After his departure from Fenerbahçe in 2025, Ferhat Gündogdu, chairman of the Central Refereeing Committee (MHK), was arrested along with six other senior figures.He was also in charge of Real Madrid between 2010 and 2013. Between 2001 and 2018, Barcelona paid approximately €7.3 million to €8.4 million to companies linked to the chairman of the referees’ association: Enrique Negreira.That Negreira case is more current than ever. A week ago, Real Madrid submitted a 50,000-page report to UEFA and want nine league titles to be taken away from their arch-rivals from Catalonia. “I arrived at Real Madrid and went through the important years of Negreira,” Mourinho continues.He added: “Nobody knew it, but we experienced it. I left afterwards, and now it is known. But in Turkey, the big scandal… These kinds of situations happened more often,” said Mourinho, who returned to Real Madrid last summer. The club took The Special One away from Benfica.Mourinho had also previously worked at AS Roma, where he won the Conference League at Feyenoord’s expense. On 14 October, Real Madrid visit Rome. “On the day I arrived, thousands of people were there to welcome me, and I had done nothing yet.”He added: “I didn’t deserve this, but this is Roma.” Under Mourinho, Roma also came close to another European trophy. However, the Europa League final in 2023 was lost to Sevilla on penalties. Roma and Mourinho felt hugely robbed afterwards by a penalty not given following a handball.Then Mourinho completely lost his temper with referee Anthony Taylor, who before his departure was intimidated by Roma fans at Budapest airport. “My responsibility lies only with what happened in the tunnel with the referee, not with what happened at the airport,” he says.That clash with Taylor damaged Mourinho’s relationship with the Roma owners, with whom he had a deep disagreement over the incident. “I paid the price with my relationship with the owners, who had a different profile from me, and a different approach to that final,” he says.Finally, Mourinho said: “The final was over, we went on holiday and when I came back, I was already dead. I was destroyed by UEFA, who made me pay for something for which I was not responsible,” Mourinho said.
