The Football and Society Podcast

Weaponising the sick-note: How managers maintain a position of power through their treatment of injured players

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Episode notes

In August 2015, Jose Mourinho criticised his first-team doctor, Eva Carneiro, for running onto the pitch to attend to an injured player, and she was subsequently dropped from Chelsea’s medical staff. Carneiro later took Mourinho to court for his use of abusive language, but the incident had also brought to the fore a debate about managers’ attitudes towards injured players.

Very little is known about football management strategies, particularly in academic literature. Graeme Law and his colleague Daniel Bloyce have explored the views of managers with regards to player injuries. They had interviewed 10 managers across the five professional English leagues in 2013, asking them questions on aspects such as playing through pain, taking risks with team selections in important games, and ‘inconveniencing’ injured players.

Managers interviewed revealed that they did not expect their players to be 100% fit for games, and in some cases they faced difficult decisions about whether to play ‘key’ players for important games when there was a risk of injury. There was scepticism among managers generally towards those players who missed action due to minor injuries, or those who feigned injury.

How concerned are clubs for players' long-term health?
How do managers weaponise 'gossip' to ensure player complicity and maintain control over a squad?
Are managers becoming more sympathetic to players in an era of social media?

...all this and more in the 15th episode of the Football and Society podcast.

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Each week, Ash, Chris and Norman explore societal issues through the lens of the beautiful game.

From the ethics of gambling sponsorship to what a stadium move means for fans, we’ll be covering it all each week with expert guests from the worlds of sports journalism and sociology.