Jose Mourinho slams ‘very famous’ referee for allowing ‘UFC move’ as anger boils over

Fenerbahce’s hopes of extending their Europa League campaign suffered a blow with a draw against Lyon on Thursday, leading to Jose Mourinho blasting the refereeing team

Jose Mourinho has reignited his feud with Italian referee Paolo Mazzoleni following Fenerbahce’s draw with Lyon.

Mourinho took over the Turkish side in the summer but it has been a difficult debut campaign for the legendary boss. Fenerbahce currently sit 23rd in the Europa League and are in serious trouble of dropping out of the play-off spots altogether.

Their hopes suffered a blow on Thursday night thanks to a goalless draw with Lyon. Mazzoleni was acting as the VAR for the game and played a pivotal role in the eventual result.

Mourinho was insistent that Lyon defender Saël Kumbedi was lucky on two occasions to have escaped without being shown a red card. The first incident came just after the half-hour mark following a harsh challenge on Fenerbahce midfielder Sebastian Szymański.

The Lyon star was booked, with Mazzoleni opting against intervening, leaving the Fenerbahce boss furious. He said: “The referee made a mistake by giving just a yellow card to Kumbedi for the foul on Szymański.

“The VAR is there to help the referee when the referee makes a mistake and he didn’t call him, because if the referee goes to the screen he gives the red card.

“It was Mr. Paolo Mazzoleni, very famous in Italy by the way, that didn’t call the referee. The referee’s mistakes on the pitch are acceptable, the VAR is there to work and it didn’t.”

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Mazzoleni did get involved just before half-time when Lyon defender Moussa Niakhaté was shown a red card by referee Simone Sozza for a sliding challenge on Fenerbahce’s Irfan Can Kahveci. Sozza overturned his initial decision to a yellow card after reviewing it, with Mourinho again unimpressed.

“When the referee gave the red card to Niakhaté, Mr. Mazzoleni now decided to do his job well and he called the referee,” Mourinho added. “The referee went to the screen and he made the correct decision.”

“Kumbedi made a grabbing by the neck kind of UFC move to Szymański, who was going in the direction of goal. This would have been a second yellow card and it should have been a red card, so big mistakes. It’s impossible to speak about the game without speaking about this.”

Mourinho had a number of run-ins with Mazzoleni during his time as Roma boss. His current side now need to claim a positive result in their final league phase game against Midtjylland to continue in the competition.

“We are in trouble at this moment to qualify,” Mourinho admitted. “Nine points may or may not be enough. It’s still in our hands but right now in Europe, it’s difficult for us because we are short of players.

“The only thing I know is that we have to go to Midtjylland and we have to fight for a result to qualify. We cannot be waiting for a combination of other results, we have to go for our result and we will. We have many players that are suspended.”

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