Jose Mourinho sacked by Fenerbahce after missing out on Champions League qualification
Updated 29/08/2025 at 10:01 GMT+1
Jose Mourinho has left his role as head coach of Fenerbahce after the Turkish giants missed out on a place in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League. Fenerbahce dropped into the UEFA Europa League after losing 1-0 to Benfica on aggregate earlier in the week. Mourinho spent 15 months in charge of the Turkish club.
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Video credit: TNT Sports
Jose Mourinho has left his role as head coach of Fenerbahce after the Turkish giants missed out on a place in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League.
Mourinho joined the Turkish Super Lig side in 2024 and guided them to a second-place finish last season.
That qualified them for this season’s Champions League, but a loss to Benfica - the club where Mourinho began his managerial career in 2000 - led them to look for a change of manager.
In a statement on their Turkish X account, they confirmed that the manager had left the club and thanked him for his work.
Last season, they were knocked out of the Turkish Cup in the quarter-finals and were knocked out by Scottish giants Rangers in the last-16 of the UEFA Europa League.
Mourinho had moved to Fenerbahce after spending three years in Serie A with AS Roma, where he won the Conference League in 2022.
The 62-year-old Portuguese has recently been linked with a move to Premier League side Nottingham Forest after their current manager, Mourinho’s compatriot Nuno Espirito Santo, said that his relationship with the club’s owner Evangelos Marinakis had "changed."
Mourinho has managed in the Premier League before, having made his name as one of the best managers in the world with his first stint at Chelsea between 2004 and 2007.
He then left for spells at Inter Milan, winning the Champions League for the second time after his first success with Porto, and then moving to La Liga for a tempestuous rivalry with Pep Guardiola’s Real Madrid.
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Mourinho returned to Chelsea to win another Premier League, then added a UEFA Europa League to his trophy cabinet with Manchester United, before a less successful spell with Tottenham Hotspur.
Mourinho has so far won the Champions League twice, the UEFA Cup/Europa League twice and the UEFA Conference League, four Premier League titles, two Scudettos, one Liga and a host of other domestic cup competitions.
The decision to sack Mourinho comes on the same day as another Turkish team, Besiktas, removed manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer from his post after their own European elimination.
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