The CEO of a charity that supports referees has condemned Jose Mourinho’s attack on Anthony Taylor after Roma lost their Europa League final against Sevilla on Wednesday night, claiming his actions could lead to a refereeing getting “murdered”.

The head coach labelled the referee a “f****** disgrace” for his “bull**** decisions”, confronting him as he tried to leave in the bowels of the Puskas Arena on Wednesday night.

Mourinho turned the air blue as he harangued the official for “seeming Spanish” for how he perceived Taylor to be handing out yellow cards to Roma players. The former Real Madrid coach was himself booked for his outsized displays in the dugout during his side’s loss on penalties.

Taylor was also harassed by Roma fans at the airport in Budapest as he attempted to make his way home from the final with his family.

Speaking on TalkSport, Martin Cassidy said the incidents were “really worrying” when taken into consideration alongside other attacks on referees by managers in the top-flight.

Cassidy said: “It’s a really worrying incident this, and we just hope that Anthony and his family are OK and are being supported properly.”

“I think people need to recognise the consequences of what they say, what they tweet, what they do. Look at what has happened just domestically; we’ve said for a long time that we fear a match official is going to get murdered. And this is another step closer to that.” 

The Ref Support chief executive stressed that Mourinho should receive a ban and Roma an additional punishment for the actions of their head coach.

“Jose Mourinho needs to take a big chunk of responsibilities for this,” he added. “And many managers across the world who do similar don’t realize there’s consequences here across the world.

“First and foremost, it would be nice to see him come out and see where he sits with this, as well as Roma – the silence is quite damning.

“I think we start to look at taking [the clubs] them out of competitions, deducting points, something more than monetary and silly bans.

“In this context when it’s a competition, we’ve got to look at saying, “you’re not qualified for next season’s competition if you do qualify”.

“There’s got to be something more than silly weak punishments, otherwise it’s going to continue, and something worse than what we’ve seen last night is going to happen, without consequences.”

UEFA confirmed on Friday that they have opened disciplinary proceedings against Mourinho for “insulting/abusive language against a match official”, with its Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body (CEDB) set to rule on the matter “in due course”. 

Taylor received further support from the PGMOL, who put out a statement saying they were “appalled” by the scenes at the airport.

“We are appalled at the unjustified and abhorrent abuse directed at Anthony and his family as he tries to make his way home from refereeing the UEFA Europa League final.

“We will continue to provide our full support to Anthony and his family.”

Rio Ferdinand and Jeff Stelling were two other high-profile names who defended Taylor’s decision-making on Wednesday whilst condemning the actions of the Roma supporters.  

• The Daily Mail report