Jose Mourinho should apologise to Chelsea doctor Eva Carneiro for ignorant conduct
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Updated 14/08/2015 at 14:00 GMT
Jose Mourinho appears to have strayed beyond his remit as a football coach. The safety of players is always more important than the game, writes Desmond Kane.
Jose Mourinho during Chelsea's 2-2 draw with Swansea.
Image credit: Reuters
Should Jose Mourinho apologise to Chelsea doctor Eva Carneiro?
Eva Carneiro is more special than the ‘Special One’. That may sound hard to believe to some Chelsea fans, but without educated, intelligent women like their club’s good doctor, professional footballers would not be able to function properly on a daily and weekly basis.
"Behind every successful man is a woman, and behind her is his wife," is a quote attributed to comedian Groucho Marx. The furore enveloping Jose and his stand-off with his club’s medical practitioners would be comical if it were not so real.
Behind every great football team is a good doctor. A bit like Doctor Carneiro at Stamford Bridge, who helped keep creaking and bruised figures like captain John Terry upright last season.
For Carneiro to be stripped of her role with the first team for treating an injured player is quite ridiculous, akin to Mourinho being sacked for failing to lead his team to a win over Swansea on the opening day of the season. None of it makes any sense.
Mourinho praised his medical staff for their contribution in keeping his main protagonists fit last season during Chelsea’s rise to their first Premier League title since 2010. Amid the maelstrom, such soundbites appear to have been lost in the summer wind.
Mourinho apparently instigated an action against Carneiro that led to her being informed on Tuesday that she would cease to be the club doctor on match days after she and head physio Jon Fearn treated Eden Hazard in the closing moments of Saturday's 2-2 draw.
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Eva Carneiro in happier times at Chelsea
Image credit: Reuters
Mourinho was scathing in his criticism of Carneiro and Fearn, who he felt had failed to “understand the game” by rushing to the aid of the grounded Hazard with 10-man Chelsea suddenly under threat of being reduced to nine in the closing moments.
It has since emerged that Carneiro and Fearn were twice prompted by referee Michael Oliver to attend to Hazard, who was lying prostrate after a challenge by Gylfi Sigurdsson. What if he had swallowed his tongue?
This threatens to blow up in Chelsea's face. The General Medical Council guidelines on good medical practice state that Carneiro had no option but to help Hazard. Otherwise she would have been ignoring the GMC’s advice on the “safety and quality” of her role. As much a dereliction of core duties as Mourinho opting to play 2-3-5 with Chelsea winning 1-0 in the closing 10 minutes of a Champions League final.
Carneiro and Fearn are required to meet the standards of the GMC, not their employers. Caring for patients is more important than the wishes of Mourinho, whose PhD in football does not extend to a swift diagnosis of someone’s plight.
Doctors are hired by clubs to make early diagnosis and the correct call without taking unnecessary risks. A bit like Mourinho’s outlook as a football coach that has brought him so much success at clubs such as Porto, Internazionale, Real Madrid and Chelsea over the past 12 years.
While Jose’s strategy should remain his own business, medical decisions must similarly remain sacrosanct and within the hands of the professionals who have studied medicine. The safety of players is more important than the game.
'Medical experts" such as Pat Nevin and Tony Cascarino have been offering their opinions, but there is no misdiagnosis of the situation.
Chelsea’s reaction is absurd if they have hung the good doctor out to dry. And they are surely risking further legal action by refusing to desist with their current course. Carneiro has apparently been told she will no long work as the team’s doctor on match days, travel with the team or work with them during training sessions at Cobham. If this is true, it is obviously absurd.
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Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho gestures to first team doctor Eva Carneiro as Victor Moses is substituted during a pre-season match with Fiorentina.
Image credit: Reuters
The good doctor is being punished for doing her job. Mourinho would be a bigger man by admitting he called it wrong in the heat of the moment, apologising to Carneiro and asking for her to be reinstated.
How people should behave and what they actually do is rarely the same thing. Mourinho needs to show some decorum rather than feeling he has been undermined. Failing that, some humility and acting correctly by a fellow professional should be standard practice. But it may be too big a pill for him to swallow.
The medical reaction
Peter Brukner, Australia cricket team doctor and Liverpool FC's former head of medicine.
It's got nothing to do with the manager. You don't have doctors telling a manager to play someone up front or play 4-3-3.The doctor was 100% correct and the manager, in my opinion, was 100% wrong. He should apologise and the club should ensure that the doctor and physio are not demoted as a result of this. She has been publicly humiliated in front of the biggest audience there is and she had not done the wrong thing.
Premier League Doctors' Group.
The Premier League Doctor's Group considers that removing Dr Eva Carneiro from the Chelsea team bench for their next match is unjust in the extreme. In the publicised incident in last Saturday's game against Swansea, the Chelsea medical staff were clearly summoned on to the field of play by the match referee to attend to a player. A refusal to run onto the pitch would have breached the duty of care required of the medical team to their patient.
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