Mourinho hid in a laundry basket back in 2005
It remains one of the most outrageous tales in modern football, and now, Jose Mourinho has finally admitted it’s true; he really did hide in a laundry basket to get around a UEFA ban and deliver his team talk to Chelsea’s players.
Back in 2005, Mourinho was hit with a two-match touchline suspension just before Chelsea’s crucial Champions League quarter-final clash with Bayern Munich.
The ban meant the fiery Portuguese manager couldn’t be anywhere near the dugout or even in the dressing room on match day.
But true to his reputation for bending the rules to win, Mourinho came up with an audacious plan to defy UEFA’s watchful eyes.
“I go to the dressing room during the day, so I was there from midday, and the game is seven o’clock. I just want to be in the dressing room when the players arrive,” Mourinho revealed years later on beIN Sports.
Newspapers first reported rumours of the laundry basket caper back in 2007, but it wasn’t until recently that Mourinho opened up about how he and Chelsea’s kit man, Stewart Bannister, pulled it off.
“I went there and nobody saw me. The problem was to leave after. And Stewart Bannister, the kit man, put me in the basket. It was a little bit open so I could breathe,” he said.
But smuggling the ‘Special One’ out proved far trickier than sneaking him in. Suspicious UEFA officials were determined to catch him red-handed.
“But when he is taking it outside the dressing room, the UEFA guys were following and desperate to find me, so he closed the box and I couldn’t breathe. When he opened the box, I was dying. I am serious, I was claustrophobic, I promise. It’s true,” Mourinho said.
In the end, Mourinho’s covert pep talk paid off, at least for that round. Chelsea won the first leg 4-2 at Stamford Bridge and edged Bayern Munich 6-5 on aggregate.
But their European adventure ended at the semi-final stage with that infamous ‘ghost goal’ by Liverpool’s Luis Garcia.
Watch the interview below:
In 2005, Mourinho was suspended by Uefa ahead of a UCL knock-out match at Chelsea (vs Bayern), meaning he couldn’t even be in the locker room.
But he went to the locker room anyway, and had to leave hidden in a laundry basket…
An all-time great story😂 pic.twitter.com/ccIb4170AS
— IM🇵🇹 (@Iconic_Mourinho) July 20, 2025
FKA/MA
Meanwhile, watch what Jane Reindorf Osei says about Ghana’s readiness for tourism investment:
