Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho doesn’t do sorry – at least not in public.
Mourinho confirmed Friday that first-team doctor Eva Carneiro and physiotherapist Jon Fearn will not sit on the bench for Sunday’s match against Manchester City after they had gone on the pitch to attend Eden Hazard in the club’s opening English Premier League game of the season against Swansea.
Chelsea’s Portuguese manager has been widely criticized for the way he has treated Carneiro and Fearn and while choosing not to apologize to Carneiro or Fearn – in public anyway – he didn’t rule out the duo returning to the bench in future.
“Dr. Fearn and Dr. Carneiro will not be on the bench, but that doesn’t mean for the rest of the season. For some people it’s important. For others, it’s not… It’s my decision,” said Mourinho as he read out a prepared statement.
Mourinho, who wouldn’t take any questions on camera from journalists on the matter, was speaking to the media for the first time after losing his temper with Carneiro and Fearn after they ran onto the field to treat Hazard Friday in the closing moments of the champions’ 2-2 draw to Swansea at Stamford Bridge.
According to widespread reports earlier in the week, Carneiro was said to have been stripped of her match-day duties – although still remaining in the role of first-team doctor – and Mourinho confirmed as much in his press conference.
“I don’t want to run away from the question. Jon Fearn and Carneiro will not be on the bench. They will not be on the bench on Sunday, it is my decision, my responsibility, but that does not mean it will be that way in the future.”
In explaining his decision, Mourinho did make a point of offering praise to his medical team.
“I want to say I have a fantastic medical team led by Dr. Paco Biosca, more than a dozen professionals, and have a very good relationship with them and as they tell me all the time, they were never praised so much as in the last few years,” Mourinho said.
“I praise them lots of times. We have disagreements during this period, we need disagreements to improve. We work together.”
Soccer rules state that a player must leave the pitch for a short period once they have received medical attention, and Chelsea were already down to 10 players following the earlier sending off of goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois whem Hazard went down.
Television footage suggested match referee Michael Oliver twice indicated to the Chelsea bench that the medical team should come on after Hazard went to ground following a challenge by Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson.
Under guidelines issued by the GMC – the body to which all practising medical doctors in Britain must be registered – a doctor must “take prompt action” if they believe a patient’s “safety, dignity or comfort are being compromised.”
Providers of medical care are obliged to put the GMC’s guidelines ahead of the wishes of any employer, and the organisation has the power to suspend or strike off those who do not meet its standards.
“We make it clear that doctors must make the care of their patient their first concern,” said a GMC statement sent to CNN.
Carneiro was backed Thursday by FIFA, with the governing body’s chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak telling Sky Sports News that club doctors have an “ethical duty to look after the players’ health.”
Dvorak added: “Everyone involved has to respect the fact the doctor is in charge. I don’t want to interfere with the club as such, but I would endorse clearly what the team doctor and the physiotherapist did. When they were asked, they had to come on to the pitch.”
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who has clashed with Mourinho on numerous occasions in the past, couldn’t resist touching on the incident in his own press conference earlier Friday.
“It is a problem inside the club that if you are not united it is more difficult. It is the trust and unity that makes the strength,” Wenger said.
“Firstly I have not followed that as you know I do not have great interest about what is going on at Chelsea. Secondly the rules are quite clear that when the referee gives an indication that the medics can come on they come on. It is the referee who makes the decision.”
After Saturday’s draw, Mourinho didn’t hold back in criticizing his medical team.
“I wasn’t happy with my medical staff because, even if you are a medical doctor or secretary on the bench, you have to understand the game,” he said.
“If you go to the pitch to assist a player, then you must be sure that a player has a serious problem. I was sure that Eden didn’t have a serious problem. He had a knock and was very tired.
“My medical department left me with eight fit outfield players in a counter attack after a set piece and we were worried we didn’t have enough players left.”
On Sunday, Carneiro posted a message on her Facebook page thanking “the general public for their overwhelming support. Really very much appreciated.”
The doctor’s post prompted a number of responses that were broadly sympathetic to her.
“You did the right thing Eva, health before all else,” posted Paul George. “Much as we love Jose he was bang out of order. Everyone is right behind you.”
Earlier in the week Mourinho’s actions were condemned by Australia’s cricket team doctor Peter Brukner, formerly Liverpool’s head of sports medicine and sports science.
“I thought it was appalling behaviour by the manager,” Brukner told radio station talkSPORT.
“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?”
Brukner also suggested Mourinho should say sorry to his medical department.
“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.
“Our first priority as doctors and physios is the health and safety of the individual player, and that’s what they were attending to.”
Carneiro, who initially joined Chelsea in a role with the reserve team, was promoted to first-team work by former manager Andre Villas-Boas in 2011 and continued in that role under Rafael Benitez and then Mourinho.
One of only a small number of women in a first-team EPL set-up, she has suffered sexist abuse from sections of the crowds at Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal.
Speaking at a conference staged by the Swedish football federation last year, Carneiro hit out at the stereotyping of female doctors in television programs, saying: “In every television program I have ever watched, the female doctor is hyper-sexualised.
“She goes off with Tom Cruise and it is all happy endings. Or she is not present. Or she is a lesbian. This is the perception young girls grow up with of what a female doctor is.”