EPL Chelsea Manager Jose Mourinho "has criticised the media" after French TV station Canal+ published comments he made about Chelsea lacking reliable strikers, adding that remarks about Samuel Eto'o's age "were not intended to be serious," according to Josh Reich of REUTERS. Chelsea's Champions League game at Galatasaray on Wednesday "has been overshadowed by Mourinho's comments that were made at a sponsor's event in Switzerland as part of a private conversation that he did not know was being filmed." Mourinho: "The problem with Chelsea is we lack a scorer. I have one (Eto'o) but he's 32. Maybe 35, who knows?" Mourinho said that he "was not defending what he said but that the media should be embarrassed by what had occurred." Mourinho: "I think you should be embarrassed as media professionals because by the ethical point of view I don't think you are happy that your colleague is able to record a private conversation and to make it public" (REUTERS, 2/25).
PRIVATE COMMENTS BECOME PUBLIC: The BBC reported Mourinho said that "he was joking when he complained about Chelsea's lack of forwards and made an unflattering comment" about Eto'o's age. Mourinho: "It was a funny conversation with somebody that doesn't belong to the football world. It is a disgrace that someone is taping a private conversation" (BBC, 2/25). In London, Jeremy Wilson reported the comments were made when Mourinho was "speaking to representatives of the Swiss watch manufacturer Hublot." The remark about Eto'o is "understood to have been a reference to the supposed doubt about the true age of some African players." Mourinho believes that the context "has been completely lost and is furious" that Canal+ posted the video on its website. The footage was "subsequently deleted," but, by then, Mourinho's comments "had been translated and broadcast around the world" (TELEGRAPH, 2/25).
