Richard Scudamore: Handshake is meaningless without respect
The Chelsea and Arsenal managers twice failed to acknowledge each other after Sunday’s Community Shield, the latest in a long line of disputes between the bitter rivals.
The Premier League reacted by telling managers they would face punishment if they failed to adhere to a new set of guidelines for touchline behaviour and Scudamore admits “it should not be beyond anybody” to shake hands after a match.
But Scudamore also says he would rather Mourinho and Wenger continued to ignore each other than acknowledge each other if they didn’t mean it sincerely.
“What would be worse is a meaningless handshake where it meant nothing,” said Scudamore, when asked if the two managers should have shaken hands.
“Does it send out a bad message? Not artificially. The authenticity is far more important. Shake hands if you mean it, shake hands if you want to shake hands, and if there is some enmity between you, that is for individuals to decide, not me.
“At the end of the day it is a sport and at the end of a sporting contest whether you have won or lost, it should not be beyond anybody to shake hands. That is why we have a line-up at the beginning and the players shake hands and there is an element of respect about that.
“It is rivalry, it is competitiveness and people understand it goes back a long way, and I don’t want to go any further. I have said what I want to say and it is between them.” For his part, Mourinho insists he would shake Wenger’s hand in future.
He said: “As a manager in a football stadium, I never refuse a handshake with a rival. By respect of my club and by respect of football I would never refuse a handshake with a football manager in a football stadium.” The Portuguese has welcomed the Football Association’s crackdown on abuse of match officials, despite his at times fractious relationship with football’s authorities.
A new code of conduct will see touchline staff who abuse officials first given a verbal warning before being sent to the stand in the event of a repeat offence.
The Chelsea manager says he behaved well last term, before pointedly referring to the moment he was pushed in the chest by Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger at Stamford Bridge last October.
“I am very happy because last season I had fantastic behaviour on the touchline. I was never sent to the stands, I was never punished for my behaviour,” Mourinho told talkSPORT.
“I always had good relations with the fourth official I had a new experience in my career, which is always welcome, because I was pushed in the technical area by another manager and it was a good experience for me to keep my emotional control.” That was the moment Mourinho and Wenger’s long-running feud turned physical and the pair did not shake hands after last Sunday’s Community Shield, when the Frenchman claimed a first win over the Portuguese at the 14th attempt.
Scudamore, meanwhile, has also declared he will not move fixture dates to help Premier League teams in Europe. Mourinho is among those who believe the strength of the Premier League harms their chances in the Champions League and has asked for the governing body to move more games to Friday nights to give times more time to recover.
But Scudamore insists that is not an option.
“The reality is we gear our entire fixture list around giving our clubs in Europe the best possible chance in that it is based around the European calendar,” he said.
“First of all, what happens is the international dates go in, then the Champions League and Europa League and we come after that. We build our calendar around no club being required to play with less than a three day gap.
“We do everything we can, but what is not possible is to make the gap bigger than that, because you can’t do it for everybody. I can understand why a single manager wants something for his individual club because that is what sets them apart, that is the competitive drive, but it just does not work.”
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