• La Liga

Mourinho exit 'joke' misunderstood

Jose Mourinho may have joked about his future when speaking with a group of local youth coaches on Tuesday, but no definitive decision on where he will manage next season is likely to emerge until he sits down with Real Madrid president Florentino Perez at the end of the season.

Reports emerged on Wednesday afternoon that Mourinho had revealed he would definitely not be at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu next term, immediately leading to speculation that he had already agreed to rejoin former club Chelsea, or perhaps take over at Paris Saint-Germain.

Those reports soon looked premature however, when it became clear that they were based on an apparent joke Mourinho made while giving a talk to coaches at the Madrid junior club where his own son plays.

Canillas president Manuel Alvarez's 'revelation' was made to Deportes COPE.

"Mourinho told us that next year he would not come to give the coaching talk, that it was impossible, because he would not be here," Alvarez told the radio station. "He said it half joking, half serious, I do not know clearly. He did not say where he would go because we did not ask him any further. We just asked him about some tickets for the Champions League."

The last public comments from Mourinho himself on his own future were made to reporters at the press conference after early April's Champions League quarter-final second leg at Galatasaray. Mourinho, who still has three more years on his Madrid contract, said then he would have a "friendly chat" with Perez once the current season had ended.

"At the end of the season I will sit down with whoever I need to sit down with," he said then, when asked about his future plans. "He is the president and my friend, the legal and emotional representative of Madrid. We will sit down to talk in a relaxed way, as two friends."

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