Eva Carneiro opened up about the aftermath of her conflict with Jose Mourinho and getting sacked by Chelsea in 2015, telling Talksport: “It’s impossible to go through something that I went through for the best part of a year of my life and not be changed by it.
“But it hasn’t put me off at all. It’s fair to say I needed time off, I needed to enjoy my job again and be a doctor again without the complications of being in the limelight.
“I was in every paper in every country for a really long time and I wasn’t at all comfortable with that. Certain individuals in football wanted to treat me like I did something wrong, when it was clear I was only doing my job.
“I recently came across that Martin Luther King quote: ‘We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends’ – that’s what still hurts.
“In football, whether it’s racism, child abuse, athlete safeguarding and respect for the medical treatment – a change of culture is needed to change the things which are ugly about it.”
Carneiro was involved in controversy in 2015 when Mourinho criticized her for running onto the pitch to treat an injured Eden Hazard during Chelsea’s 2-2 draw against Swansea City in the 2015/16 Premier League season. Soon after that, she was forced to leave Chelsea after being demoted by Mourinho.
The Gibraltarian doctor later sued both the club and Mourinho for ‘sexual discrimination’ and settled court cases against them in 2016. Carneiro continues to work as a doctor and has her own private practice in London, specializing in sports medicine.
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