{"id":196017,"date":"2026-02-23T23:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T22:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident"},"modified":"2026-02-24T00:39:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:39:06","slug":"mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Obi Criticizes Mourinho for Vinicius Incident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Former Super Eagles captain, John Mikel Obi, has criticized Benfica manager for his remarks on the Vinicius Jr racism row.<\/p>\n<p>The incident happened in last week\u2019s Champions League play-off first leg, after Vinicius Jr accused Gianluca Prestianni of calling him a \u201cmonkey\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>After the game, Mourinho claimed the Brazilian winger incited the home fans with his goal celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>He also pointed to Benfica\u2019s legend Eusebio as proof that the Portuguese club is not racist.<\/p>\n<p>Mikel Obi, who played under Mourinho in his two spells as Chelsea boss, said on his Obi One Podcast: \u201cWhat I expected to hear from my old boss, from my gaffer [was] \u201cYes it is under investigation, but there is not place for racism there, there is no place for such thing, but let\u2019s wait until it is concluded, there is no place for that\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo for him to come out and say \u201cOh yeah, Vinicius Jr shouldn\u2019t have celebrated the way he did\u201d, that was a clumsy, clumsy comment from Jose Mourinho.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018He will be the first, he knows, he will be the first to know \u201cI\u2019ve f***ed up here\u201d. He is a smart, smart guy, a very smart guy, he knows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Former Super Eagles captain, John Mikel Obi, has criticized Benfica manager for his remarks on the Vinicius Jr racism row. The incident happened in last week\u2019s Champions League play-off first leg, after Vinicius Jr accused Gianluca Prestianni of calling him a \u201cmonkey\u201d. After the game, Mourinho claimed the Brazilian winger incited the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":196016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-196017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mikel Obi Criticizes Mourinho for Vinicius Incident - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Super Eagles captain, John Mikel Obi, has criticized Benfica manager for his remarks on the Vinicius Jr racism ro ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mikel Obi Criticizes Mourinho for Vinicius Incident\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Super Eagles captain, John Mikel Obi, has criticized Benfica manager for his remarks on the Vinicius Jr racism ro ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-23T22:30:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-23T23:39:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1771889929.905934.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mikel Obi Criticizes Mourinho for Vinicius Incident\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-23T22:30:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-23T23:39:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident\"},\"wordCount\":222,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1771889929.905934.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/mikel-obi-criticizes-mourinho-for-vinicius-incident\",\"name\":\"Mikel Obi Criticizes Mourinho for Vinicius Incident - 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