There are few people in football who have seen more than Jose Mourinho.
He has experienced life at the top of the game for more than two decades – in England, in Spain, in Italy and in Portugal – but even he is shocked by what he says he found in Turkey.
“This is not about sports rivement,” he says in our exclusive interview. “This is much larger than what people can imagine. If you live here or try to dig deep, you will find incredible things.”
Mourinho speaks to me from the heart, after serving a ban of two games for his well -published comments after the Istanbul Derby. He is now confronted with another ban on the touchline, for the comments he made in Sky Sports News last week.
Before he lost to Rangers last week, his team played well. Eighteen games without defeat and they have closed the gap on bitter rivals Galatasaray.
But he now believes that it is a gap that can never be completely closed, and not for footballing reasons.
“We have found good stability [on the pitch] But everyone in this country knows that, if things do not change, it is impossible to win [the league title].
“I raise my voice to defend my club and to defend Turkish football, because this is a beautiful country. But football here must be more than this.”
Sky Sports News has contacted the Turkish FA for a response to the claims Mourinho did in this interview. When Sky Sports News contacted the Turkish FA last week in response to Mourinho's original claims, they did not respond.
To raise his voice, Mourinho is more than once a fine and banned.
In November, after beating Trabzonspor 3-1 away from home, he told an interviewer after the game: “We play against a system, and to play against a system is the hardest. The system will try to close my mouth.”
Then he ended with the words that have become a slogan here.
“We are clean.”
Last week 'We Are Clean' T-shirts went for sale in the Fenerbahce Club Shop. Mourinho gave me one, fresh from the production line, before we sat down for our chat.
He is relaxed, despite the controversial headlines of the past two weeks, but says that he is not sorry about saying, despite the penalties, and he will continue to do it.
“I would say that in normal circumstances we would not be the second fighting to be the first. In normal circumstances the title race would be over, but it would be over (with us winning) at a huge distance.”
And he adds with a sigh: “It's too much. It's just too much.”
Mourinho's Portuguese countryman, Jorge Jesus, had the same feeling. “This competition has no sporting reality,” he said when he was Fenerbahce head coach.
Fenerbahce officials led me to these statistics to support the claim.
In the last 10 full seasons, Fenerbahce has achieved 717 points in total. That is one less than Galatasaray, at 718. Fenerbahce has not won competition titles. Galatasaray has won five. Besiktas has achieved 18 points less than Fenerbahce, but won the title three times.
In the past five years it has been a similar story, except that Fenerbahce has picked up more points than Galatasaray. The title Tally is Galatasaray Two, Fenerbahce Nil.
Although point totals do not necessarily mean that they deserve to win a title, it emphasizes why they feel disappointed.
But the alleged bias Mourinho, his club officials and club supporters are observed, are not, they claim, only anti-Fenerbahce, but pro-galatasaray.
Many journalists feel it too, and other clubs too.
Last month, during a match between Galatasaray and Adana Demirspor, the visiting players all walked off the field in protest against a soft penalty award to Galatasaray. Repeats suggested that Droogs Mertens may have dived. At least he exaggerated every contact dramatically. Alvaro Morata scored from the place.
DemirSpor was so furious that they refused to return to the field and the game was left at 1-0. The Turkish football federation later awarded the points and a 3-0 win to Galatasaray.
In a statement, DemirSpor, said that the decision to leave the field was a “reaction from our club was to systematic, deliberate referee errors and injustice”.
Mourinho told me that he was surprised that the DemirSpor team ran away but was even more shocked by the reaction of the Galatasaray players.
“Can you imagine a team that leaves a match because the favoritism of the referee of Galatasaray was too much?” he said.
'Can you visualize this in England?
“They did it because the dimension was ridiculous. But what was even more ridiculous is that the Galatasaray players kept on the field to celebrate the victory. That was not a victory. That was a team that had not been respected that they had to leave the game.
“This is what happens here.”
He feels such a sense of injustice that he cannot help to express it, regardless of the punishment. Time and time again. After competitions. Before agreements. On social media.
“This is not a situation that a single club can solve (only) solve. It will not destroy a system.”
Then he appealed to the camera.
“This is your competition. This is the competition of every child who dreams of becoming a football player. The competition of every child who loves his club. This is your competition, and if you are happy with the status quo, be happy. I have learned a new word (in Turkish): 'Skandal'. But in this country many people love it.”
Mourinho told me that he does it to make a difference.
“My Instagram is a very raw Instagram. I do it myself. I do all the photos. Sometimes I write with bad spelling, but that's how I do it. It has about six million followers around the world, and when I post ridiculous situations, I think people open their eyes.”
Of course, for every Fenerbahce -suggestion of bias, for every Mourinho cry of error, there are equally strong feelings of Galatasaray that is Fenerbahce who benefits from the Turkish football system.
And it often gets ugly.
I have been in Istanbul about football matters a few times now, and I have to admit that I have never witnessed a club or mutual hatred. It has been enlarged Glasgow. It is El Clasico on fast forward. It is the NLD with copper buttons on.
That is why Galatasaray made the most extreme exception possible to 'jump' the metaphor of Mourinho. That is why Mourinho is a counterclaim.
It's tit for Tat.
The mentality is: “You attack our manager and we will attack yours.” The club war in Istanbul does not take prisoners.
Ultimately, it is of course impossible to prove unambiguously claims of bias towards a club or a club. However, the TFF (Turkish football federation) seems to have accepted that the quality of referee in the country is not everything it could be. That is why foreign referees have been drawn up to officer a few games for the rest of this season.
The man in the middle for the now notorious Istanbul Derby last month was Slavko Vincic. He was so highly appreciated by UEFA that he was in charge of the Champions League final last season at Wembley.
Mourinho also assesses him.
He went through the tunnel after the game to congratulate him on his achievements, although he had not allowed a goal that Fenerbahce would have given all three points. At the same time, he criticized the Turkish fourth official.
Fenerbahce wants to point out that Mourinho is never forbidden or fined for racism. He was, they say, accused of making an “insult” but eventually punished for “unsporting behavior”.
Mourinho is not sorry. At least for now he does what he believes is suitable for Fenerbahce. It's not about him. It's about his club.
“I don't think about myself. I have won eight championships. If it goes to nine, there is of course nine better than eight, but I think of the club and not myself.
“I am thinking of the 35 million fans who Fenerbahce has in Turkey and I think of the reasons why Fenerbahce never wins a title for so many years.
“Trying to win the title here means more for the club and the fans than for myself. I work for them.”
And at closing, he laughs and smiles when he says: “I am in a phase of my career where my ego is taking and the feeling of solidarity, the feeling of doing something for others is getting bigger.
“So if I can help this club to do something that can change the direction of Turkish football, that would be a fantastic sense for me.”
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