Manager Jose Mourinho has been heavily criticized by former player John Obi Mikel following his comments about a racist incident involving Vinicius Junior and one of Benfica’s players.
Jose Mourinho accused Vinicius Junior of inciting a backlash that led to racial abuse (Image: 2026 Getty Images)
John Obi Mikel is adamant that Jose Mourinho will know he is “messed up” after claiming Vinicius Junior incited a backlash that led to accusations of racial abuse from the Real Madrid star.
The Spanish giants defeated Mourinho’s Benfica in the first leg of their Champions League clash last week. The Brazilian claimed that Gianluca Prestiani called him a “monkey” while covering his face. On Monday, UEFA announced that the Benfica player had been handed a provisional one-match suspension, which would prevent him from taking part in Wednesday’s second leg.
UEFA continues to investigate allegations of racial abuse, which Prestiani denies, but could end up with a 10-game ban. However, Mourinho has been supportive of his players, which has led to major criticism.
He suggested that Vinicius Jr. incited the crowd with a celebration after scoring the only goal of the match. “Something is wrong because it happens in every stadium. In every stadium where Vinicius plays, something happens. It happens all the time,” he said in the Special One newspaper.
Mikel played under Mourinho for two years as Chelsea manager and believes the Benfica boss will later retract his comments.
read more: Jose Mourinho makes drastic decision before Real Madrid vs. Benfica over racism issueread more: New investigation into Vinicius Junior begins after Real Madrid star suffers further abuse
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He said on the Obi Wan Podcast: “What I expected to hear from my old boss, my manager, was, ‘Yes, there’s an investigation going on, but there’s no room for racism in it, there’s no room for things like that, but let’s wait until it’s concluded, there’s no room for that.'”
“So for him to come out and say, ‘Oh yeah, Vinicius Junior shouldn’t have celebrated in that way,’ was a clumsy, clumsy comment from Jose Mourinho. He’ll be the first to know, ‘I made a blunder here,’ he knows. He’s a smart, smart guy, a very smart guy, he knows.”
John Obi Mikel is confident Jose Mourinho will realize his reaction was the wrong approach (Image: The rest is football)
Mikel added: “I don’t know why he hasn’t apologized, but I hope he will come out and make a statement at some point. Having played with Jose Mourinho, no one has anything bad to say about him, especially when it comes to racism, zero, absolutely zero.”
“He’ll be the first to say, ‘I messed up, it was after the game, my emotions were running high, I didn’t think about what I said, I didn’t think about what I was going to say.'” He’s an experienced manager, he’s a smart guy, he knows what to say. His statement is a big, big, big mistake. ”
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