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Carneiro and Mourinho
Carneiro and Mourinho pitchside on Saturday. Photograph: BPI/Rex Shutterstock
Carneiro and Mourinho pitchside on Saturday. Photograph: BPI/Rex Shutterstock

Eva Carneiro: medics rally to demoted Chelsea doctor after Mourinho row

This article is more than 8 years old

Sport physicians support Eva Carneiro after coach criticises her for rushing on to pitch to treat injured Eden Hazard in stoppage time

The Chelsea FC first-team doctor has received the backing of leading sports physicians after learning she could lose her place on the bench at Sunday’s match against Manchester City following criticism from manager José Mourinho.

Dr Eva Carneiro was told on Tuesday that she would no longer be Chelsea’s on-field doctor on match days for going against Mourinho’s wishes, in an incident in which she and the head physiotherapist Jon Fearn ran on to the pitch to treat Belgian attacker Eden Hazard in the final minutes of Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Swansea.

After the match, Mourinho said, “I was unhappy with my medical staff. They were impulsive and naive. Whether you are a kit man, doctor or secretary on the bench, you have to understand the game.”

Footage showed that the referee twice turned to the bench after Hazard went down following a challenge and signalled for medical attention before the Chelsea medical team ran on to the pitch. Carneiro, who is from Gibraltar, angered Mourinho on Saturday but she apparently sealed her demotion with a post on Facebook the next day, which attracted 20,000 likes, to “thank the general public for their overwhelming support”.

Peter Brukner, a leading sports physician, said on Wednesday that Mourinho’s behaviour towards the doctor, one of the most high-profile women in the sport, was “absolutely appalling”.

A former Liverpool FC doctor says Chelsea’s medics were rightly responding to the referee’s instructions Guardian

Brukner, the former head of sports medicine and sports science for Liverpool, said he believed Mourinho owed his medical staff an apology. “I thought it was appalling behaviour by the manager,” he said. “He has a player who has gone down, who has remained down and the referee obviously considered it serious enough to summon on the doctor and the physio.

“They went on as they must do when they are summoned on and the player is down and, as a result, the player had to come off the ground. What do you expect the doctor to do? Just ignore the referee beckoning them on?” he said on TalkSport radio. “The medical staff deserve a public apology and I’m very disappointed that the club hasn’t come out and done something to support them; they were just doing their job.”

Carneiro joined the London club in 2009 and is the first woman to hold such a role in Premier League football. She will stay as first-team doctor and continue working with the squad, but her responsibilities will reportedly be scaled back. She previously worked at the British Olympic Medical Institute, with England Women’s Football and at UK Athletics and is liked by the Chelsea players.

Sammy Margo, the first female physiotherapist to work in football in England, said she was not sure the manager’s reaction would have been as severe had the doctor not been a woman. She said: “Being a woman in football draws a little bit more attention than it would ordinarily.” On the Today programme, Margo added that this had been her experience for a large part of her career in the game.

The Premier League Doctors’ Group said the medics were clearly summoned by the referees to attend to Hazard. Refusing to go would have breached the doctor’s duty to a patient, said Dr Mark Gillett, the group’s chairman who is also West Bromwich Albion’s performance director. He described the decision to remove her from the touchline as “unjust in the extreme”.

Mourinho was visibly annoyed at his medical staff for entering the pitch to treat Hazard in the third minute of stoppage time during the first match of the Premier League season at Stamford Bridge. With goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois off the pitch after a red card, Chelsea briefly went down to nine men after the staff ran on to treat Hazard. “I was sure Eden didn’t have a serious problem. He had a knock and was very tired,” Mourinho said. “My medical department left me with eight fit outfield players in a counterattack after a set piece and we were worried we didn’t have enough players left.”

Carneiro, a sports medicine specialist, received sexist taunts at football matches earlier this year. She said at an FA conference last year: “In every programme I’ve watched in my life, the female doctor is either hyper-sexualised, or she’s not present. This needs to change.”

Chelsea refused to comment on an “internal staffing matter”. Eamonn Salmon, the chief executive of the Football Medical Association, said his organisation fully supported the actions of its “members and colleagues in this incident who acted with integrity and professionalism at all times, fully cognisant of the rules of the game and in full accordance with that duty of care to their patient”.

Mourinho, one of the most successful managers in English football, will undoubtedly be questioned about the issue at his weekly pre-match press conference on Friday.

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