Soccer: Uefa's disciplinary committee yesterday accused Jose Mourinho of "poisoning" football with the claim that referee Anders Frisk had spoken in his dressingroom with Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard at the Camp Nou last month.

Yesterday Chelsea, Mourinho, his assistant Steve Clarke and the club's security official Les Miles were charged with bringing the game into disrepute. Mourinho, Clarke and Miles were accused of making "wrong and unfounded" statements over what they claimed they had seen at half-time in the match at the Camp Nou and the trio may now face fines or touchline bans if found guilty at a hearing on March 31st.

Chelsea's manager alleged Rijkaard had entered Frisk's dressingroom at half-time in the Champions League second-round, first-leg tie and he suggested the Swedish referee had "helped" Barcelona in his officiating of the game. Chelsea compiled a report detailing their version of events and that sparked a Uefa investigation.

However, relying heavily on the evidence of Uefa officials stationed in the players' tunnel throughout the interval, Chel-sea's deposition was disputed by Uefa's control-and-disciplinary body, leading to yesterday's disrepute charges.

"[ The charges are] for making false declarations, notably in the complaint sent by Chelsea following the Champions League match played against Barcelona at the Camp Nou," said Uefa.

"By further disseminating these wrong and unfounded statements, Chelsea allowed its technical staff to deliberately create a poisoned and negative ambience amongst the teams and to put pressure on the refereeing officials."

Chelsea said they would "review [ their] position before making any response".

Uefa's stance indicates that discussions between Uefa chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson and Chelsea's chief executive Peter Kenyon at last Friday's Champions League quarter-final draw in Nyon failed to secure clemency for the Premiership leaders, although Kenyon insisted those talks focused only on "football matters" and not the details of the case.

Kenyon will be aware that if the hearing finds Mourinho and his colleagues guilty of bringing the game into disrepute, one sanction open to Uefa would be to eject Chelsea from the Champions League.

With Chelsea prepared to fight such punishment in the courts by claiming restraint of trade, however, it is little more than a theoretical possibility and any hope Barcelona may have of being reinstated in time to replace Chelsea in facing Bayern Munich in the competition's last eight on April 6th appear extremely faint.

One Uefa official yesterday hinted that the most likely form of censure the control-and-disciplinary body will apply is a touchline ban for the individuals involved.

"It is a whole range of punishments that is possible," said Uefa's director of communications William Gaillard. "They go from fines to being officially suspended from the game, which is a match ban.

"It can be one [ match], can be two, can be three; it is exactly the same as what a player can incur. So it is up to the judges to consider how grave the charge is and whether they agree that the charges are correct."

Having been given a one-match ban in 2003 for preventing a Lazio player from taking a quick throw during Porto's Uefa Cup first-leg win, Mourinho had reportedly argued at a Uefa elite coaches' meeting last year that being prevented from entering the dressingroom was unjust and a touchline suspension should suffice. He was overruled.

The judges set to pronounce on the latest case will be enlisted from criminal courts. "Chelsea will have the opportunity to present their case, either directly or indirectly through a lawyer, much like a court proceeding," said Gaillard.

Frisk has since retired from refereeing after death threats from people purporting to be Chelsea fans. He said at the weekend that Mourinho had "violated" his integrity and he has resisted all attempts to coax him out of retirement.

Uefa were careful to point out yesterday that the charges did not relate to those threats, rather to the "untruths" in the allegations of an inappropriate conversation between Frisk and Rijkaard. "That absolutely did not happen," said Gaillard.

"And not only that, in one statement from Chelsea we have two Chelsea officials, not including Jose Mourinho, saying they've seen it, which we know is not possible because they could not see the referee's dressingroom from where they were standing. And in an article he wrote Jose Mourinho is saying he is the one that saw it, so there is a contradiction between the two Chelsea statements."