LONDON, (Reuters) – FIFA delivered what amounted to a rebuke to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho yesterday amid reports that he has banned the club’s first team doctor Eva Carneiro following her treatment of an injured player in a Premier League match.
Professor Jiri Dvorak, FIFA’s chief medical officer, said that managers had no right to tell their medical staff whether or not they should go on the pitch to treat a player and that ultimately the doctor was in charge of what happened on the pitch.
Carneiro and Chelsea physiotherapist Jon Fearn came on to treat Eden Hazard in stoppage time of Saturday’s Premier League game against Swansea City.
It left Mourinho furious that the player then had to leave the field for treatment with Chelsea already reduced to 10 men following an earlier red card.
Although both the referee and Hazard beckoned on the doctor, Mourinho said afterwards he believed the player was not seriously injured and called his medical staff “impulsive and naive” in a TV interview.
While Chelsea have not commented, reports in the British media say he has subsequently banned Carneiro from the bench, training sessions and the team hotel.
Yet Dvorak told Sky Sports that he fully backed the doctor’s actions.
