Mourinho accuses referee of working for Juve

Controversial José Mourinho said that he was provoked by the fourth official in the incident that led to his sending off in Roma’s 2-1 Serie A defeat by relegation-threatened Cremonese on Tuesday night. It was Mourinho’s third red card of the season.

Mourinho was sent off by Marco Piccinini, the referee, for dissent at the start of the second half. But the Roma head coach said that his reaction was a result of his treatment by the fourth official, who he suggested had an ulterior motive because he is from Turin. Roma play Juventus on Sunday.

“For the first time in my career a referee has spoken to me in an unjustifiable way,” he said. “I’m not crazy. And to have the reaction I had is because something happened. I need to know now if I can do something from a legal point of view.

“Piccinini gave me the red because the fourth official told him so. But the fourth official doesn’t have the honesty to also tell him what he told me, how he treated me and what provoked my reaction.

“I don’t want to go into the question that [Marco] Serra [the fourth official] is from Turin and he had me sent off in view of the Juventus game.”

Cremonese claimed their first win of the season as Daniel Ciofani’s late penalty left Mourinho’s side out of the Champions League spots in fifth place in the standings. Roma have 44 points, one point behind fourth-placed Lazio. Cremonese moved up one place to 19th.

“We didn’t deserve to lose,” Mourinho said. “The excuse of tiredness does not exist . . . rhe responsibility is ours, for a lack of intensity, lack of desire to close the game immediately.”

“We paid too high a price, we didn’t deserve to win but we didn’t deserve to lose either. Especially for what we put in the second half, after the equaliser, we all thought we could win and then came the penalty episode.”