José Mourinho handed one-match stadium ban after expletive-laden rant

A stadium ban has been handed to Chelsea manager José Mourinho after he ranted at a referee during Chelsea’s 2-1 loss to West Ham on 24th October. He will not be allowed to set foot in the stadium for the game against Stoke on Saturday.

He has grudgingly accepted that the ban, which bans him even from from sitting in the stands. This is a game that Chelsea need to win to regain their composure after only six wins in eleven games.

Mourinho chose not to appeal the decision that the three-man disciplinary hearing made, which said he had shown “persistent and/or aggressive nature of the reported behaviour” towards referee Jonathan Moss at a game away against West Ham United. The incident started when the Chelsea boss refused to leave Moss’s dressing room, after which he reportedly shouted “You fucking referees are weak”. After this, he was escorted out of the dressing room by West Ham security manager Simon Sutton.

This is Mourinho’s fifth charge of misconduct since he returned to Chelsea in mid 2013. He has racked up charges of £141,000 since then, plus an appeal which was rejected. For this incident, he was fined £40,000.
Mourinho was invited into Moss’s dressing room at half-time with Sutton to discuss incidents in the first half of the match. Chelsea were losing 1-0, and had been reduced to 10 men after midfielder Nemanja Matić was sent off a few minutes before the whistle blew. After Mourinho had ranted to Moss about the sending off, a disallowed goal and a goal denied by touchline technology, he told Moss that referees were “[expletive] weak”. After he had been escorted out by Sutton, he was sent off and had to sit in the stands.

He told reporters that the ban will “change everything” about how he interacts with games. ““I’ve been banned from the bench before but this is a stadium ban, stopping me working,” he said in a press conference on Friday. He will still be allowed to communicate with club staff by telephone, but will be resigned to watching the game through other means.

The Stoke-Chelsea game takes place at the Britannia Stadium at 5:30pm on 7th November. Chelsea lie in 15th place in the Premier League, while Stoke are one place above them in 14th.