Macedonian captain Goran Pandev has backed Jose Mourinho’s claims that the Fifa award for coach of the year was rigged.

The Real Madrid boss refused to attend the glitzy gala in Zurich last year, originally citing a lack of time.

Spain’s Euro 2012 winning manager Vicente del Bosque scooped the main coaches’ prize ahead of the Special One and Pep Guardiola, but the Portuguese tactician has recently revealed his scepticism over the legitimacy of the voting process.

Speaking in an interview on Portuguese TV, Mourinho said: ‘More than one person, two or three people, phoned me to say they’d voted for me and that their vote ended up going to someone else. So I decided not to go.’