Highlights

  • Carneiro joined a private practice and worked with the Aspetar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital in Qatar after leaving Chelsea.
  • Her run-in with Mourinho had a major impact on her career but didn't put her off from working in football.
  • Carneiro is now an investor in non-league club Lewes FC, which is working towards positive changes for women in football.

We’ve lost count of the number of people Jose Mourinho has fallen out with during his managerial career. It doesn’t matter if you’re a star player or an opponent’s ballboy, you’re not safe from Mourinho’s wrath when things aren’t going his way. And in recent years, things haven’t always gone his way. Some say he hasn’t been the same since an infamous clash with a member of staff in 2015.

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Of course, we’re talking about Eva Carneiro. Chelsea’s physio left football after being slammed by Mourinho for attending Eden Hazard’s injury during a 2-2 draw against Swansea on the opening day of the 2015/16 Premier League campaign. Hazard went down injured in injury time and Carneiro along with then-chief physio Jon Fearn, ran onto the pitch to tend to him. Of course, it meant that Hazard would have to leave the pitch and wait to be called back on by the referee. It left Mourinho furious, which he made sure to share after the match.

"I wasn't happy with my medical staff because even if you are a medical doctor or secretary on the bench, you have to understand the game. You had to know you have one player less. So if you go to the pitch to assist a player you must be sure the player has a serious problem. I was sure Eden [Hazard] didn't have a serious problem. He had a knock and was very, very tired. My medical department [were] naive. They left me at a counter-attack with two players less."

The relationship between Mourinho and his physio couldn’t be repaired and, six weeks later, she left the club. Mourinho prevented Carneiro from sitting on the bench after the incident and was no longer allowed to attend matches or training sessions. Carneiro took the Portuguese to court, filing for constructive dismissal before rejecting a £1.2million settlement deal offered by Chelsea. It was soon settled out of court and, at the time, Carneiro admitted that it had been a tough period for her.

"I am relieved that today we have been able to conclude this tribunal case.

“It has been an extremely difficult and distressing time for me and my family and I now look forward to moving forward with my life.

"My priority has always been the health and safety of the players and fulfilling my duty of care as a doctor."

What has Carneiro been up to in the years following her Chelsea exit, though? Well, after a time away from football, she has returned, and she has been up to some very interesting things since. We're here to tell you about it.

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Carneiro has been working for a private practice

In the years since her Chelsea exit, Carneiro spent time working with a private practice, the Sports Medical Group, located in London. She also acted as a private consultant and worked with the Aspetar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital in Qatar during preparation for the 2022 World Cup. Her run-in with Mourinho had a major impact on her career, Carneiro told talkSPORT 2.

“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.”

It was that determination to see change in football that led Carneiro to one of her most surprising ventures within football, though, one she still occupies to this day.

Carneiro is now an investor in non-league side Lewes FC

Carneiro's determination to see a change in culture within football led to her investing in the non-league football club, Lewes FC. Having seen a campaign fronted by the team called #CallHimOut, she wanted to get involved. The initiative was set up to highlight violence against women and the men's team also revealed they would call out any form of misogynistic language that they heard during games.

Carneiro was interested in joining the cause and helping the team after seeing their efforts to bring positive change to football in this manner, and she joined the club as an investor in 2021, but she wasn't alone. Tennis superstar Andy Murray and his mother, Judy, also became investors for Lewes FC at the same time.

The club has been striving to make positive changes for women in football for some time now, announcing in 2017 that they had become the first team to have equal playing budgets for both their men's and women's teams. The investment of Carneiro and the Murrays' has led to positive changes within the club, as they relaid their pitch in 2022 and narrowly missed out on the playoffs last season.

This year hasn't started as strongly on the pitch, with Lewes currently sitting down in 14th, but they are still working towards creating a better environment for women in football off of it and the women's team has been thriving recently. The ladies have risen to the second tier of women's football in England, a meteoric rise in recent years.

Considering she fell out of love with football for quite some time after her incident with Mourinho, it's nice to see Carneiro has rediscovered her passion for the game and is channelling that passion in an effort to bring positive change to the sport. They might not be the biggest club in the world, but Lewes are certainly doing their bit to improve the culture.

Hopefully, the excellent work the club is doing to improve the way women are treated in football will be rewarded with some success on the pitch too, with both the men's and the women's teams.