Mourinho 'to walk out' but Chelsea say don't be fooled

Reports in Portugal last night claimed that Jose Mourinho may consider walking out of Chelsea at the end of the season. However, the Premiership club immediately dismissed the reports - which started on the privately-owned Portuguese SIC television station at about 8pm last night - as nothing more than an April Fools' Joke.

Reports in Portugal last night claimed that Jose Mourinho may consider walking out of Chelsea at the end of the season. However, the Premiership club immediately dismissed the reports - which started on the privately-owned Portuguese SIC television station at about 8pm last night - as nothing more than an April Fools' Joke.

The station does have a close relationship with the Chelsea manager, who is due to start presenting his own chat show on the channel next month. The reports claimed that Mourinho has been angered by Chelsea's refusal to appeal over the two-match touchline ban he was handed on Thursday after being found guilty by Uefa of bringing the game into disrepute. This followed the incident at the Nou Camp in February in which it was claimed that Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard had entered referee Anders Frisk's room at half-time.

Mourinho, the reports claimed, has taken his own legal advice - contacting lawyer Jean-Louis Dupont, who handled the Jean-Marc Bosman case - and has been told that any appeal against the ban, which rules him out of both legs of Chelsea's Champions' League quarter-final against Bayern Munich, would succeed. It is claimed that Mourinho held meetings with Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon and also complained about the stance taken by chairman Bruce Buck, a lawyer himself, who has counselled against any appeal. Mourinho, so the reports claim, said that Chelsea should stick together more over the issue.

Mourinho is known as a headstrong character who is quite willing to walk out of a club if he feels he has been wronged. Sources in Portugal confirmed last night that there was truth in the reports that he was unhappy with the Uefa ruling and Chelsea's reaction. However, the club insisted last night that there was no split and director of communications Simon Greenberg stressed that the report on SIC was nothing more than an April Fools' Joke. Newspapers in Portugal, including the sports daily O Jogo, were taking the reports seriously.

Uefa's chief executive Lars Christer Olsson, meanwhile, said that he hopes that Mourinho - who was also fined Swiss Fr20,000 (£9,000) will "learn some lessons" from his ban. "This sentence reflects our evaluation of how grave [the charge] is. The message out of this is that if you are a high-profile coach or player, you have to take your responsibility of being a role model for many other people," Olsson said.

Chelsea assistant manager Steve Clarke and security officer Les Miles were reprimanded following the hearing by Uefa's control and disciplinary body, while Chelsea as a club were fined Swiss Fr75,000 (£33,300).

Meanwhile, Arsène Wenger has called on Chelsea to show some "moral leadership" and to make their direction as a club known to everyone in the wake of their punishment by Uefa.

The Arsenal manager said: "I still feel that with what happens on the field, every club has its values. I would like to hear a voice at Chelsea come out and say what they really want to do, what they want to be in England and how they want to behave.

"Whether it's Peter Kenyon [the chief executive], Roman Abramovich [the owner], or Mourinho, I just feel it needs one voice coming out of the club. I don't know how they want to behave and where they want to go. Some moral leadership is what I'm saying. At the moment they miss that voice. I think it's important for English football. They will be a leading club in the coming years.

"Sometimes the manager or sometimes the chairman shows the way and the values and how they want to behave. At the moment that has not come out from Chelsea."