Born in Gibraltar to a Spanish father and English mother, Carneiro,
now 41, set her stall out to become a doctor working in sport at a very
young age. “I was a 16-year-old girl watching Champions league games and
I really wanted to be like the guy that runs on the field,” she said at
the Swedish FA’s medical conference last year. “I was lucky because I knew what I wanted to do at the age of 16 but there was nobody else doing it.”
Having studied medicine at Nottingham before qualifying as a doctor
by working in north London, she then joined the British Olympic Medical
Institute’s Intensive Rehabilitation Unit at Bisham Abbey and then
earned a place on UK Sport’s training programme. That saw her work
closely with British athletes before the Beijing Olympics before moving
on to work with the England women’s team.
Carneiro joined Chelsea in 2009 after being recommended director
Marina Granvoskaia - a powerful figure at Stamford Bridge - and was
briefly interim successor as the club’s medical director to Bryan
English before the appointment of Spaniard Paco Biosca by then-manager
Andre Villas-Boas. She was retained as part of the first-team staff and
became a regular on the Chelsea bench under a succession of managers,
being promoted to assistant medical director at the start of last year.
Video footage taken of Manchester United and Arsenal fans last season
showed she was the victim of grossly offensive chanting on several occasions, with the then-minister for sport, Helen Grant, backing a major campaign against sexism in football.
What happened at Stamford Bridge?
There was a little more than 90 seconds left of the four minutes of
allocated injury time when Swansea captain Ashley Williams clattered
into Eden Hazard as the Chelsea
forward looked to break forward. Williams was rightly shown a yellow by
referee Michael Oliver, who then beckoned for the medical staff to
enter the pitch to treat Hazard. First-team physiotherapist Jon Fearn
was the first to cross the touchline, closely followed by Carneiro.
Mourinho erupted in anger immediately, turning away and shouting
obscenities that were clearly audible from the press box. At first, it
seemed as though he may be shouting at Hazard, who looked over at his
manager as he was led off the pitch. But as Carneiro was making her way
back to her seat, Mourinho pulled her to one side and whispered in her
ear for a few seconds, before turning towards Fearn as he walked past
and loudly venting his frustrations once again.
Eva Carneiro and Jon Fearn treat Eden Hazard on the pitch after he was fouled. Photograph: IAN KINGTON/AFP/Getty Images
After the match, Mourinho was asked about the incident by both Sky
Sports and the written press in his Monday briefing and clearly remained
angry. “It was the physio and the doctor,” he said. “The problem was
that I had ten men and the moment the medical department puts a foot on
the pitch then I have got nine men. So for them to do that they must be
sure the player has a real problem and not a little knock and with my
experience and the way I read the game I could clearly see it was not a
problem. But without any doubt, they went to the pitch and left the team
with nine men. Without any doubt, if you are involved in the game then
you have to understand the game.”
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What options did Chelsea’s medical staff have?
Once Oliver had made the decision to beckon the medical staff onto
the pitch, not many. The foul by Williams was deliberate, hard and
designed to stop Hazard - the reigning PFA Player of the Year - in his
tracks as Chelsea chased a winning goal. Judging by the Belgian’s
reaction as he lay on the ground, it was no great surprise to see the
referee call for immediate attention.
According to a statement
released on Wednesday by the Premier League Doctors Group, “a refusal
to run onto the pitch would have breached the duty of care required of
the medical team to their patient” so Fearn and Carneiro were simply
following protocol.
The Portuguese had appeared in good humour at the start of the match
as he took his place in the dugout, joking with his opposite number
Garry Monk just before kick off. But his mood turned sour after a series
of perceived injustices during first-half, in particular when Oliver
failed to award a penalty after Diego Costa was tackled by Federico
Fernández.
The sending off of Thibaut Courtois certainly didn’t help improve
matters, although Mourinho seemed to have calmed down as his 10 men
coped admirably with Swansea’s threat and looked more likely to grab the
decisive goal. That was why his outburst was so surprising, especially
given that Chelsea were about to deliver an attacking free kick into the
opposition box and Hazard is not generally known for his heading
ability - or indeed his tracking back skills.
It seems that more a likely explanation for his anger stemmed from
simmering tensions with his medical staff, with unconfirmed reports that
Mourinho has been considering Carneiro’s position as a member of the
first-team party since last year.
What are her options now?
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Carneiro’s decision to post a message on her Facebook account is understood to have sealed her demotion,
meaning she will no longer attend training sessions, matches or enter
the team hotel. Having only previously made one post on her public page,
her post thanking the public “for their overwhelming support. It was
really very much appreciated”, could potentially be the beginning of the
end of Chelsea career.
Staff are allowed to have social media accounts but are forbidden
from posting anything that criticises the club or the game’s governing
bodies. While it appeared a relatively benign statement, many of the
messages she received urged Carneiro to remain strong in the wake of
what some called Mourinho’s “bullying”, meaning that the manager could
have perceived the post as a personal slight against him.
“The best thing about my work is probably that I get to do what I
really love every day,” she said in Sweden. “It’s exciting and there is
always something new happening. It’s very different form a nine to five
job.” With so many of her responsibilities now removed, it remains to be
seen whether Carneiro is happy to stay.
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