Vincent Kompany has taken Benfica boss Jose Mourinho to task for the Portuguese manager’s comments on Vinicius Junior’s character after the Real Madrid forward had complained of being racially abused in a Champions League game.
Vinicius had accused Gianluca Prestianni, a member of Mourinho’s Benfica team, of racially abusing him as he celebrated a goal in Lisbon. Vinicius had walked off the pitch which led to the game being halted for 10 minutes. UEFA has since appointed an ethics and disciplinary inspector to investigate the incident.
Reacting to the allegations, Mourinho had suggested that Vinícius had ‘incited’ Benfica’s players with his celebrations after scoring the only goal in Tuesday’s playoff match.
Bayern Munich manager Kompany was incensed when asked about Mourinho’s comments in his press conference.
“You have the leader of an organisation, Jose Mourinho, who attacks the character of Vinicius Jr by bringing in the type of celebration to discredit what Vinicius is doing in this moment. In terms of leadership, it’s a huge mistake and something we should not accept,” Kompany said.
“I met 100 people who worked with Jose Mourinho. I’ve never heard a person say anything bad about Jose. All his players that played with him, they love him. I understand the person he is. I understand he is fighting for his team, for his club and he’s made that decision.
“You cannot be a bad person and have all the ex-players you’ve had talk so positively about you. I know he’s a good person. I don’t need to judge him as a person but I also know what I’ve heard and I understand maybe what he’s done, but he made a mistake. Hopefully it won’t happen again in the future, and we can move forward and grow and look at the things that we can do together rather than things that constantly separate us.”
Mourinho had said: “There is something wrong because it happens in every stadium. The stadium where Vinícius played something happened. Always.”
Vincent Kompany defends Vini Jr and criticizes José Mourinho for his statements after the game
— Bayern & Germany (@iMiaSanMia)
Kompany pointed out that Mourinho had himself abandoned all caution while celebrating goals like at Old Trafford after Porto had beaten the Red Devils.
“When Jose Mourinho is doing the knee slide at Old Trafford, when he goes to the fans in a semi-final of Inter Milan vs Barcelona and he goes in front of the Barcelona fans and does his celebration, when he plays against Sevilla with AS Roma and is fighting with the referees and they have to leave the country under protection after that game… in that moment if someone was racist to Mourinho, I would have hoped that all of us would have said ‘stop’, it doesn’t matter his celebration, let’s listen to what he has to say and let’s defend some simple things, some core things,” Kompany said.
Kompany also lashed out at Mourinho for dragging club legend Eusebio’s name into his impassioned defence of Prestianni.
“On top of it he [Mourinho] mentions the name of Eusebio, to say that Benfica cannot be racist because the best player in the history of Benfica is Eusebio,” Kompany said.
“Do you know what black players had to go through in the 60s? Was he there to travel with Eusebio every away game and see what he went through, every place in Europe?
“Today, to use his name to make a point about Vini Jr who’s actually, finally in a situation where he can say something about it … there are a lot of players in different leagues in Europe who don’t have a voice. There are players in Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia if something happens to them and they are black players they have zero chance to have any kind of support.”
