Turkish refereeing committee quits amid Mourinho threat message scandal

Perhaps Mourinho was not exaggerating when he complained about referee bias in Turkey. At least, that is the conclusion drawn from the serious controversy involving the Fenerbahce manager and the officials responsible for refereeing in the Turkish league.

The digital outlet Ajansspor revealed that the president of the Disciplinary Committee stepped down, along with the rest of the board, after messages from a private chat among the committee's leaders were leaked. In those messages, they threatened the Sarı Kanaryalar and the Portuguese coach.

Among the incendiary messages, one stood out in which Celal Nuri Demirturk, the committee president, directly targeted Mourinho. "Next season, we will make him pay for this. He has been tolerated too much," the official wrote in response to the coach's complaints about the refereeing in the derby against Galatasaray.

The leaks prompted an immediate reaction from the Istanbul club, which lamented: "We believe this hostile mentality, which violates the principle of impartiality and is based on confrontation and revenge, has no place in Turkish sport."

"Our club has submitted an official request to the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) in response to the correspondence made public and allegedly belonging to members of the Professional Football Disciplinary Committee," Fenerbahce announced.

Just a couple of days later, the entire refereeing board resigned en masse. "The Turkish League is too dark, too grey, it stinks. After 25 years as a coach and 35 in football, I had never seen anything like this," Mourinho said last season. In light of recent events, it seems he was far from wrong.