Jose admitted the whole thing while speaking on BeIN Sports
The laundry basket tale. It is one of the most infamous Jose Mourinho stories of all time.
It was in 2005, during his first spell at Chelsea. Following his side’s 2-1 Champions League first-leg loss to Barcelona, Mourinho spectacularly made allegations that then-Barca boss Frank Rijkaard had secretly visited referee Anders Frisk at half-time, influencing his decision to send off Didier Drogba.
Chelsea went on to win the tie in the second leg, but Mourinho received a two-match stadium ban for inappropriate conduct.
Mourinho was therefore barred from Stamford Bridge for Chelsea’s quarter-final against Bayern Munich. The official story was that he watching the game of television at a nearby location.
But for years, it has been rumoured that Mourinho was actually smuggled into his team’s dressing room, hidden in a laundry basket.
The tale became part of modern football mythology, but it has never been confirmed. Until now.
Jose Mourinho joined Richard Keys and Andy Gray as a pundit on BeIN Sports this week, and finally opened up about the incident.
Keys asked him point-blank if he was really in the laundry basket, and Mourinho unashamedly answered: “Yes, yes I was”.
“The fundamental thing of it is: Chelsea v Bayern Munich, a big match in the Champions League. I need to be with my players. And I did it, yeah.”
And he had no qualms about telling all about the ruse. It seems getting in was easy – it was getting out undetected that was the hard part. And it was a lot more dangerous than you might have thought.
“I go to the dressing room during the day, so I was there. I’m there since midday, and the game is seven o’clock, and I just want to be in the dressing room when the players arrive.”
“So I go there, nobody sees me. The problem was to leave after.”
“[Chelsea kit man] Stewart Bannister put me in the basket. The metal one, the hard one. Puts me in there. I go in there with a little bit open, so I could breathe.”
“But when Stewart is taking that outside the dressing room, outside the stadium, the UEFA guys… were desperate to find me.”
“So when I was there, Stewart closed the box. I couldn’t breathe. When he opened the box, I was dying.”
“I’m serious. I was claustrophobic. It’s true, it’s true.”
A stunning admission from José Mourinho – The infamous laundry basket story was true! Here's how he got away with it…#beINMourinho #beINPL pic.twitter.com/2mhn0MUn3m
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) January 19, 2019
Imagine how different history would have been if Jose Mourinho has suffocated in a metal laundry basket in 2005.
