Mourinho blames Chelsea board for destabilising the club

Louise Taylor
Tuesday September 25, 2007
The Guardian

Jose Mourinho yesterday blamed Chelsea's board for his downfall, saying that his achievements should have brought added stability to the club rather than raging uncertainty.

"Sir Alex Ferguson was at Manchester United for a lot of years without winning titles and he continues," Mourinho said. "Arsène Wenger's already in his third year without winning titles and continues in his work. If it were for the fans I'd have a contract for 20 years and I'd continue working without a problem.

"They never left Stamford Bridge crying because we never lost [in the league]. The day they lose a match at home they will remember they were three years without losing a single league game there."

The Portugal coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, received a vote of confidence last night from the country's federation despite his four-match suspension by Uefa. The Brazilian, who was banned last week, has apologised for striking the Serbian player Ivica Dragutinovic after the 1-1 draw in a Euro 2008 qualifier on September 12.

"He should not have acted in that way but the board of directors decided unanimously to reiterate their support to Scolari and formally support his appeal to Uefa," the Portuguese football federation president, Gilberto Madail, said. The Uefa disciplinary body will hear the appeal on October 4.

A prosecutor in Milan has asked a judge to order the vice presidents of Internazionale and Milan to stand trial for alleged false accounting, a judicial source said yesterday. The source said the prosecutor had asked for the case against Inter's president, Massimo Moratti, to be dropped.

Moratti and Milan's vice president, Adriano Galliani, were placed under investigation in January as part of a probe into suspected false accounting in Serie A football. Both Inter and Milan have rejected any claims of financial irregularity.

Middlesbrough received mixed news last night when they learned that Julio Arca will take a minimum of two months to recover from a knee injury but that Mido and Tuncay Sanli are not seriously injured and may play at Everton on Sunday. The Argentinian playmaker sustained a medial ligament injury in Saturday's draw with Sunderland and the club may have to consider recalling the out-of-favour Gaizka Mendieta from the reserves.