Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho has branded the FA as being clueless, after they hit Eric Dier with a four-game ban.
Dier has been punished for jumping into the stands to confront a fan at the end of Spurs’ FA Cup loss to Norwich in March. Apart from being suspended for four of his club’s final five matches of the campaign, he was fined £40,000.
In the written reasons for Eric Dier’s punishment, which was confirmed on Wednesday, it was revealed that the Tottenham fan had called the England international a “w—–” and a “f—— c—”.
Mourinho did not name the FA when quizzed on whether players receive enough protection inside stadiums, but said: “My feeling is that in the majority of the cases, football is not protected by the people that are powerful and don’t belong to this world. That’s simply my feeling.
“Powerful people that don’t belong to the tribe and they don’t have the feelings. They don’t have the know-how and it’s very difficult to lead something when you don’t have a clue about the world that you are leading. We play the football that we love, the football that some people with big responsibilities sometimes don’t look like they love, but we love football.
“So I don’t want to speak about Eric Dier now because in the end I’m going to open my heart and that’s something that I do not want to do.”
While Mourinho was furious with the decision that rules Dier out of Thursday game against Bournemouth and key matches against Arsenal, Newcastle and Leicester City, he showed a forgiving side towards the abuser.
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“I want fans back,” Mourinho said. “I want fans back very much. Of course we prefer fans to support, of course we prefer fans to react, but lots of the beauty of football is the fans. I want them back. I want them back as soon as possible.
“Even that specific fan, especially because the fan had the opportunity to meet the player, had the opportunity to apologise to the player, had the opportunity to understand that we are very well paid but we are not robots.
“We are very well paid, but we have families and friends that support us in the stadiums. So I think it was a good opportunity for that fan to turn his profile and become a different fan. But no space of doubt, I want fans back.”
Asked if Dier had met his abuser, who told police that he was “being an idiot” and had not felt threatened by the defender, Mourinho added: “It was his own decision to do it, because the person in this case, first of all, is a Tottenham fan and was sorry about what happened.
“The way I was told, he had the dignity to want to apologise to him. It was a nice thing that, in normal circumstances, especially after saying that he never felt under threat at any moment of the situation, would be enough for a fair decision.”
