BT Sport signs Chelsea boss Mourinho

UK telco BT has inked a deal with Jose Mourinho, the manager of English Premier League club Chelsea.

Mourinho will make football programmes as well as acting as a pundit on the BT Sport service, which has set up in direct opposition to BSkyB’s Sky Sports in the UK and recruiting the Chelsea boss will be viewed as a coup for the telco.

BT did not provide detail on the football programmes that will come out of the deal with the Chelsea manager, but said the deal with Mourinho will run for three years.

Mourinho said: “I’m looking forward to working with BT Sport. In their first year they have shown they are not afraid to challenge, are open to new ideas and want to do things differently. This is the kind of team and ambition that I want to work with.”

It’s not Mourinho’s first venture into TV programming making. He appeared in Sky1 HD competition series Football’s Next Star, and was also the subject of a Portuguese-developed toon, Mourinho and the Special Ones, which start-up Sports Stars Media is working up.