FIFA: Managers have no right to dictate to doctors

Managers had no right to tell their medical staff whether or not they should go on the pitch to treat a player, according to football’s world governing body FIFA.

The message is seen is in response to the criticism delivered by Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho on the club’s first team doctor Eva Carneiro following her treatment of an injured player in a Premier League match.

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.

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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.

“In medical aspects, in medical diagnosis, the manager has nothing to say,” Professor Jiri Dvorak, FIFA’s chief medical officer, saitold Sky Sports.

“This is our professional law, and our ethical duty to look after the players’ health. I can’t see such a situation and we have to defend the position of the doctor.

“Everyone involved has to respect the fact the doctor is in charge.”

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“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.”

Dvorak said that the doctor had to be on the bench to observe the game and was allowed on the field even without the referee’s permission if he or she saw a player suffer a suspected cardiac arrest or a head injury, including concussion.

“That is the sole decision of the doctor and we at FIFA will always endorse that,” he added.

Mourinho’s behaviour towards the Gibraltar-born Carneiro was “absolutely appalling”, Liverpool’s former head of sports science Peter Brukner told Talksport radio on Wednesday.

The Premier League Doctors Group said in their statement that removing the doctor from the team bench would be “unjust in the extreme” because she was doing her job properly.