By Toby Prince
FIFA delivered what amounted to a rebuke to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho Thursday 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.
Asked how much say the manager should have if a player is injured, Dvorak explained: “In medical aspects, in medical diagnosis, the manager has nothing to say.
“This is our professional law, and our ethical duty to look after the players’ health.”
Asked if the manager could ever tell the medical team not to enter the field, Dvorak said: “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.”
“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.
