AS Roma head coach Jose Mourinho has been charged by UEFA after his verbal and physical confrontations with match referee Anthony Taylor in the Europa League final.
UEFA has decided to charge Jose Mourinho for using 'insulting/abusive language against a match official' after confrontations with Anthony Taylor during Wednesday's Europa League final. Mourinho’s Roma side lost the final 4-1 on penalties against Sevilla who won a record-extending seventh Europa League title.
The Portuguese manager and members of his staff were abusive towards English referee Anthony Taylor on a number of occasions during the final in Budapest and directed their anger at him.
After the game, footage on social media showed Mourinho directing a string of expletives toward the officials in the car park, labelling their performance a "disgrace".
Mourinho continued his criticism of the officials in his post-match press conference, saying: "I need to defend my lads, and I must say that we are used to it, but still seeing this kind of refereeing in a European final is really, really hard.
"It was an intense, vibrant game with a referee who seemed Spanish. It was yellow, yellow, yellow all the time."
Footage of Taylor and his family being abused by hordes of Roma fans on their way home from the final also made the rounds on social media. They had to be ushered out of a cafe and into a secure area by airport security after supporters hounded the referee following an ill-tempered final on Wednesday evening.
The clips on Twitter show a chair and bottle being thrown in the direction of Taylor and his group.
Instead of backtracking on their original statements to ease the tension, Roma doubled down and their general manager Tiago Pinto told Italian media on Thursday: "We at AS Roma don't want to raise doubts about Sevilla's merits. We believe that with our opponents we put on a great final and honoured the stage offered to us by UEFA in the best way.
"We don't usually comment about these types of situations but we've analysed both the most glaring incidents and those seemingly less evident and it is clear that in disciplinary terms the refereeing of the match was not balanced."
Following a 1-1 draw after extra time, Sevilla won the final 4-1 on penalties after Roger Ibanez and Gianluca Mancini missed their spot-kicks for the Italian side. The final proved to be an ill-tempered affair and Taylor ended up dishing out 14 yellow cards to players and coaches of both sides, the most ever in a Europa League game, and playing almost 30 minutes of stoppage time in total.
While Mourinho was individually charged, both clubs have also been charged with a number of offenses by UEFA, with fan behaviour also penalised.
Roma were also charged with throwing of objects, lighting of fireworks, acts of damage, crowd disturbances and improper conduct of their team.
Sevilla too have been charged with throwing of objects, lighting of fireworks, acts of damage, crowd disturbances and improper conduct of their team.