Thursday 13 August 2015 10:33, UK
Jose Mourinho has been accused of putting results before the welfare of his Chelsea players by the Premier League Doctors' Group.
The Group have condemned Mourinho's treatment of his medical staff as "unjust in the extreme" after he publicly criticised club doctor Eva Carneiro and head physio John Fearn for running on to the pitch to treat Eden Hazard.
Mourinho called Carneiro and Fearn "naive" for attending to Hazard for an injury towards the end of Saturday's 2-2 Premier League draw with Swansea, because Chelsea had already had Thibaut Courtois sent off.
Carneiro - who is the highest-profile female doctor in the league - has now been told she will no longer be on duty for Chelsea first-team matches, although she will continue to work at the training ground. Fearn will also be missing from the bench for Sunday's game at Manchester City
The 20-strong Doctors' Group criticised Mourinho for putting results ahead of player safety, saying: "The Premier League Doctors' Group considers that removing Dr Eva Carneiro from the Chelsea team bench for their next match is unjust in the extreme.
"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.
"It is a huge concern that Dr Carneiro has been subjected to unprecedented media scrutiny and a change in her professional role, merely because she adhered to her code of professional conduct and did her job properly.
"It is also of great concern that at a time when the both the Premier League and the Premier League Doctors group are intensifying efforts to safeguard player welfare, the precedent set by this incident demonstrates that the medical care of players appears to be secondary to the result of the game."
Former head of sports medicine and sports science at Liverpool, Peter Brukner, also criticised Mourinho.
"I thought it was appalling behaviour by the manager," he said.
"The medical staff deserve a public apology and I'm very disappointed 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. They were doing their job and they've been criticised very publicly.
"He (Mourinho) has a player who has gone down, has remained down and the referee considered it serious enough to summon the doctor and physio. They went on as they must do, and as a result the player had to come off the field.
"What do you expect the doctor to do, just ignore the referee beckoning them on?
"They were only responding to the referee's instruction to come and treat the player, so to criticise the medical staff publicly in the way that he did was absolutely appalling behaviour.
"Maybe he should be criticising his player for staying down, and not his medical staff for treating him."
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