Vincent Kompany slams ‘huge mistake’ by Jose Mourinho over Vinicius Jr racism claim | Football

Bayern Munich head coach Vincent Kompany has accused Jose Mourinho of creating a ‘huge mistake’ together with his response to Vinicius Jr’s racism claim within the Champions League this week.

After scoring Real Madrid’s only goal within the 1-0 win against Benfica on the Estadio da Luz on Tuesday night, Vinicius received a yellow card for dancing in front of the house supporters during his celebration.

Moments later, Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni was seen talking to Vinicius together with his mouth covered by his shirt. The Madrid winger immediately ran to referee, Francois Letexier, claiming that Prestianni had said a racist insult towards him.

Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe alleged after the match that Prestianni had called Vinicius ‘mono’ or monkey, which has been denied by the Benfica winger.

Mourinho, meanwhile, took aim at Vinicius’ celebration and insinuated that the Brazilian’s actions sparked the incident.

‘I saw it occur live and there’s a pair of various components to this story, first is what happened on the pitch, second is what happened with the fans as well, third there’s what happened after the sport. For me, there’s clear separations we want to make,’ Kompany said on Friday.

‘So what happens on the pitch, you may have Vini Jr, whenever you watch the motion, his response can’t be faked. You may see it, his response is emotional. I don’t see a profit for him in going to the referee and taking all this misery on his shoulders. There was absolutely no reason for Vinicius Jr to go and do that. I believe when he does it, in his mind he does it since it’s the best thing to do in that moment.

‘Next to him you may have Kylian Mbappe, who normally at all times stays quite diplomatic, Kylian Mbappe was really clear about what he heard and what he saw and he’s much more clear after the sport when he speaks about it.

‘So all of this happens and naturally you may have a player who’s hiding what he’s saying together with his shirt. You have got a player who’s complaining, you may have a player who says he didn’t do it, and I believe unless the player comes forward it’s a difficult case and I understand this.

‘Then within the background you see within the stadium there are people doing monkey signs, it’s happening within the stadium, you’ll be able to see it.

‘Then for me, even worse, is what happens after the sport. What happens is you may have a pacesetter of an organisation, Jose Mourinho, who mainly attacks the character of Vinicius Junior by bringing within the kind of celebration to discredit what Vinicius is doing on this moment.

‘For me, by way of leadership, that’s an enormous mistake in my view. And that’s something we shouldn’t accept. So I’m very clear on that.

‘On top of that, he mentions the name of Eusebio. He says that Benfica can’t be racist because the very best player within the club’s history is Eusebio. what black players needed to undergo within the Sixties? Was he there to travel with Eusebio to each away game when he went to each place in Europe? My dad is a black person from the Sixties also who made his way. Probably on the time the one option that they had was to be quiet, and to say nothing, and to be above it, and to be ten times higher to get somewhat little bit of credit and folks say, ‘actually he’s good’. That’s Eusebio’s life, probably.

‘Today, to make use of his name to make a degree about Vini Jr who is definitely finally in a situation where he can say something about this. There are quite a lot of players who play different leagues still in Europe who don’t have a voice, there are players in Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia, if something happens to them they usually are black players they’ve zero likelihood to have any form of support. Vini Jr is at the least in a situation where quite a lot of people have made it possible for him to take this moment, and to protest on this moment.

‘It’s a difficult thing for me to talk about because to be honest, in some ways I don’t actually slot in what I see in what I see is occurring on the planet, me personally, I don’t see my place in quite a lot of things which can be happening in today’s world, I actually don’t.

‘I don’t need to be a part of one group or one other group. But when I see the situation with the player, I would really like to see a situation where whether it is true that the player from Benfica said something as bad as what he’s said, I’d love a situation where there’s a room where someone can apologise, say, ‘sorry I made a mistake’, and this has an impact on the sentence as well. When you admit you’ve made a mistake there needs to be a chance as well to say, ‘hey, no person’s perfect, that is step’. But we’re taking away all these options because we’re creating left or right, black or white, you may have to be on one side or the opposite side.

‘The one thing you’ll be able to’t do is punish someone unfairly. And one thing you’ll be able to’t do is dismiss an individual and attack the character of a one who is complaining about something he experienced, and is something that’s painful to this person.

‘When Jose Mourinho is doing the knee slide at Old Trafford, when he goes to the Barcelona fans in Inter Milan’s semi-final and does the celebration, when he plays against Sevilla with AS Roma and in that moment he’s fighting with the referees and the referees have to depart the country under protection after that game, in that moment if someone was racist to Mourinho I’d hope all of us would say, ‘stop, it doesn’t matter about his celebration, let’s hearken to what he has to say’. Let’s defend some easy things, some core things.

‘I’ve met 100 individuals who have worked with Jose Mourinho, I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about Jose. All of the players who’ve played under him love him. So I understand the person he’s, I understand he’s fighting for his team, fighting for his club and he’s made that call.

‘You can not be a nasty person when all of your former players speak so positively about you, so I do know he’s person, I don’t need to guage him as an individual but I do know what I’ve heard.

‘I understand what he’s done but he’s made a mistake. It’s something that hopefully in the long run won’t occur like this again, so we will move forward and grow. Hopefully we will have a look at the things we will do together slightly than the things that continuously separate us.’

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