If I Speak I Am In Big Trouble

Submission 38,334

Part of a series on Catchphrases. [View Related Entries]

About

If I Speak I Am In Big Trouble or I Prefer Not to Speak are catchphrases spoken several times by professional association football coach Jose Mourinho during post-game interviews when asked questions he can't answer without inspiring controversy. The quote was first spoken by Mourinho in reference to referee Chris Foy in 2014 after his team lost a match against Aston Villa by a single point. The clip went viral across social media after it was reposted to YouTube in 2020, inspiring others to use the catchphrase in posts and memes, as well as the video seeing use as a reaction.

Origin

On March 15th, 2014, Aston Villa won a Premier League soccer match against Chelsea, coached by Jose Mourinho at the time, with a score of 1-0.^[1] That day, Bleacher Report^[2] reported on the game, including a portion of an interview between Sky News and Mourinho where Mourinho says "If I speak I'm in big trouble" when asked about referee Chris Foy's performance in the game and the two red cards shown during it.

A video of the interview of the 2014 comment was uploaded to the Sky Sports Retro YouTube^[4] channel on July 16th, 2020, garnering over 628,000 views in three years (shown below).

"I prefer really not to speak. If I speak I am in big trouble […] If I speak I'm in big trouble, and I don't want to be in big trouble, and if I speak I'm accused of bringing the game into disrepute. The referees do what they do, they do and they go home, they do and they don't go to the press, they refuse even to exchange a couple of words when one person, like me who has been in football for so long, asks politely, 'Can you speak with me for five seconds?' and it's 'No, I don't speak with you for five seconds'."

Spread

On January 18th, 2020, Caught Offside^[3] shared a video of Mourinho giving a similar answer of "I prefer not to speak" during a post-game interview where he is asked about yellow cards given during a match (shown below).

"Goal-line technology doesn't make mistakes like VAR"Jose Mourinho believes his team deserved to win at Watford but doesn't want to speak too critically of the refereeing performance.🎙 @DesKellyBTS pic.twitter.com/pQ3pzzRRWs

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) January 18, 2020

The phrase became the subject of memes over the following years. On September 4th, 2021, Instagram^[5] user vadivelumemes posted an image macro using the phrase, garnering over 4,300 likes in two years (shown below).

On October 13th, 2022, TikToker^[6] @avfcofficial posted a video compiling the video clip with footage of the game he said the line in reference to, garnering over 155,000 views in six months. The audio of Mourinho saying the line has inspired numerous videos on TikTok.^[7] On April 4th, 2023, Twitter^[8] user @ExtremeBlitz__ used the phrase after being asked how deep their lore goes, responding with a photoshop of their avatar with Stalin and Matan Even, garnering over 33,000 likes in a day (shown below).