Chelsea team doctor acted with “integrity and professionalism,” says medical body

The body that represents doctors and health professionals in football has sprung to the defence of Eva Carneiro, team doctor for the Chelsea football club, after she became the butt of criticism from the club’s manager, José Mourinho, for going on to the field to treat an injured player.

In the final minutes of a match against Swansea on 8 August, the Chelsea player Eden Hazard was tripped, and Carneiro, together with the physiotherapist Jon Fearn, went onto the field to attend to him after the referee had waved them on. Chelsea were already down to 10 men after a player was sent off, and Mourinho feared that with only nine men they might lose the match, which was eventually drawn 2-2.

Mourinho said that the medical staff had been “impulsive and naive” and that they did not understand the game, but other medical professionals argued that they had no alternative. Eamonn Salmon, chief executive of the Football Medical Association, a UK body formed in 2010 to represent the interests of health professionals involved in professional football, said that …