On Friday, Jose Mourinho made a big thing about wanting to “talk about football”. He had read a statement about the demotion of his two “medical professionals” – Eva Carneiro and Jon Fearn – deflected a couple questions and now he’d had enough.
He wanted to move the press conference back to today’s game against Manchester City – a big match – but the assembled media were having none of it. Frustrated by the press – many of them the same folks who normally idolise him – he threatened to walk out, getting as far as the door, before – perhaps – realising it would have made things worse.
The weird thing about the Carneiro affair is that whatever issue – or issues – lie at the heart of this, they’re not just entirely of Mourinho’s making, they were exacerbated by him. And, for a guy who is normally so savvy in knowing what resonates with the English media, it’s one boo-boo after the other.
Leave aside for a minute whether they were right or wrong in running on to the field eight days ago to treat Eden Hazard, thereby leaving
Chelsea two men down (Thibaut Courtois had earlier been sent off).
Whatever you think about it – and all sorts of doctors have weighed in, saying it’s the medical staff’s decision, not the manager’s – bringing the dispute in the public domain after the game was decidedly odd and counterproductive. Using loaded language such as “understanding the game” – which has all sorts of sexist connotations when directed at a woman who has been on the sidelines for four years in a field dominated by men – instead of, say, “realising the situation” was asking for trouble. If he felt Carneiro and Fearn really were that irresponsible he could have read them the riot act in the privacy of the dressing room. Instead, he chose to drag the issue into the open.
Not content with that, he kept it in the public eye with his decision that the pair would no longer be pitch-side during games. Talk about fanning the flames. If he really – after two seasons and nearly 100 matches sharing a dugout with her – thinks Carneiro’s presence is a negative because of her “understanding of the game” surely there was a quieter way of demoting her.
And then came the “woman-in-the-dressing-room” business. This wasn’t direct from Mourinho, it came via Duncan Castles, perhaps the journalist closest to his camp among those in the British media.
Castles reported that Mourinho was concerned with the “dynamic” in the locker room and how it could be affected by the “presence of a female”. He added that some players had complained to the coaching staff that a woman in their midst forced them to alter their “usual behaviour” in a team environment.
If until that point Mourinho might have had some defence in keeping the issue of sexism out of the conversation, that’s where it crumbled. What sort of behaviour-altering affect could the presence of a doctor who has presumably seen every single Chelsea player naked in her professional capacity and been around male twentysomethings her entire career have?
It sounded a lot like the arguments used to keep openly gay men and women out of the military. And whatever Mourinho’s personal views might be, the fact that he so obliviously walked into this only makes the situation worse.
And it offered an interesting juxtaposition with Leicester City (and, at least for one cap, England) striker Jamie Vardy. He was caught on a casino CCTV, repeatedly aggressively directing a racial slur at an Asian man he presumably thought to be of Japanese descent. The fact that his new strike partner at Leicester, Shinji Okazaki, also happens to be Japanese, potentially made the situation worse.
Vardy avoided the sack – unlike the three Leicester fringe players, also caught on video, who also used racial slurs while filming a sexual encounter in Thailand – and was fined and ordered to undergo sensitivity training.
What unites the two cases isn’t the severity of what was said or done, which obviously differs. It’s the awareness and sensitivity shown by the club. Leicester understood that by apologising,
addressing the issue and passing it off as the actions of someone who was possibly drunk and definitely ignorant they could get away with it.
Chelsea – or at least their manager – failed to realise the many hot-button issues it would trigger: workplace bullying, sexism, player health and safety. All magnified by the fact that Carneiro is far and away the most – possibly, only – team doctor in the Premier League.
And they made it worse at every step.
First, we’re told that David De Gea isn’t in the “right frame of mind” to play in Manchester United’s season opener against Tottenham.
Then it’s reported that De Gea refused to suit up against Spurs and is training with the reserves as a result.
And then, after De Gea vehemently disputes this, maintaining that he never refused to play, we get a “clarification” of sorts. It seems that United manager Louis Van Gaal never actually spoke to De Gea, but that his goalkeeping coach, Frans Hoek did. And, after doing so, he and Van Gaal came to the conclusion that the Spaniard wasn’t eager to play.
It’s like a game of “telephone.” The simplest, most obvious thing would have been for Van Gaal to talk to De Gea, ask him directly, make his decision and stand by it. Instead, we get this fuzziness, these half-answers and “clarifications” which only make all involved look bad.
The thing to remember though, if you’re Van Gaal, is that this will all blow over in the next 13 days. If De Gea is sold to Real Madrid, you won’t have to worry about him anymore. If he stays, odds are, there will be some kind of mutually beneficial truce where he’ll start the rest of the season and then leave on a Bosman. Because having De Gea around after the transfer window shuts and NOT having him start is harmful to everyone involved.
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