Jose Mourinho has taken his case to Europe’s top rights court. He claims that his right to free speech was violated while he was managing Fenerbahce, a football club in Turkey.
Mourinho filed the lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights in March 2025. This was almost six months before he was fired by Fenerbahce after they failed to qualify for the Champions League.
Documents from the court, seen by AFP on Thursday, show that Mourinho is challenging the “disciplinary sanctions” imposed on him by the Turkish Football Federation. These sanctions were for “unsportsmanlike conduct.”
The trouble started with comments he made about fans of a rival team and Turkish referees in November 2024. As a result, he received a match ban and two fines totaling around $21,000.
According to an ECHR document dated May 13, “the applicant complains that the dispute in question had not been determined by an independent and impartial tribunal.” Mourinho also stated he had “not been notified” about the TFF’s decision. Under Article 10, he argued that his “right to freedom of expression was infringed by the sanctions imposed.”
The court accepted his complaint and posed a series of questions to the Turkish authorities.
When Mourinho arrived in Istanbul in June 2024, he was welcomed like a superstar. Fans in Fenerbahce’s yellow and black cheered for him.
But he could not end the club's title drought that has lasted since 2014. After 14 months, the club decided to let him go.
Since leaving Fenerbahce, Mourinho has been coaching Benfica in Portugal. However, he might return to Real Madrid, a club he managed from 2010 to 2013, in the coming days.
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