Jose Mourinho says his Roma career was effectively over after the 2023 Europa League final and insists he should not have been held responsible for the abuse directed at referee Anthony Taylor and his family at Budapest airport the following day.
Mourinho is due to return to the Stadio Olimpico with Real Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday at 20.00 BST. Speaking to Ivan Zazzaroni of Corriere dello Sport, he reflected at length on his time in the Italian capital and his departure midway through the 2023-24 season.
The Portuguese manager remains warmly attached to Roma, where he ended the club’s 14-year wait for a trophy by winning the first edition of the Conference League in 2021-22. He then guided the Giallorossi to another European final the following season.
Roma lost the 2023 Europa League final to Sevilla on penalties after a 1-1 draw following extra time. The match was overshadowed by Mourinho’s confrontation with Taylor in the stadium car park, where he called the officials’ performance a “disgrace”.
The next day, Roma supporters confronted Taylor and his family at the airport in Budapest. Some of the group threw chairs as the referee’s party attempted to make its way through the terminal.
Mourinho said the incident marked the point at which his relationship with Roma’s ownership changed, although he accepted responsibility for his own comments towards Taylor.
“I have never had and will never have a bad word to say against Roma, and I don’t have any bad words to say about the ownership,” Mourinho told Corriere dello Sport.
“I did make a negative comment about Thiago Pinto, for which I apologised, but when I leave, I like to leave cleanly. I came out of it well and still feel like it will always be a home to me, even if it no longer is.”
He added: “The final ends, we go off on holiday, and when I came back, I was already dead. With UEFA, I was dead, and they made me pay for something that I wasn’t responsible for.
“What happened at the airport was not my responsibility. I was responsible for the insults I gave to the referee in the car park, and for that, I should have paid. I shouldn’t have had to pay for what happened at the airport because it wasn’t my fault, but I paid for that too.
“It cost my relationship with the owners, who had a different sort of profile and a different approach to mine after the final. I came back and I was already dead. A few months later, I was out.”
Mourinho remained in charge until January, but said he felt he had effectively been dismissed on the night of the final.
“I’ve never publicly discussed my relationship with the Friedkins,” he said. “If I went back to Roma now and bumped into them in the corridor after the game, I would say hello without any problem. But I feel that I was sacked on the day of the final.”
