Rob Chakraverty: England football team doctor’s job not in doubt despite injection controversy

The England football team doctor will remain in his post despite calls for him to face a General Medical Council investigation over an injection he gave to Mo Farah four years ago when he was with UK Athletics.

Dr Rob Chakraverty, the lead men’s performance doctor in the lead-up to the summer’s World Cup, was named in the damning DCMS select committee report on combatting doping in sport.

The committee described itself as “shocked” after hearing the doctor gave Mo Farah an L-carnitine injection ahead of his London Marathon debut in 2014 but did not record the dose on his medical records. The supplement is legal if an athlete receives a maximum of 50 millilitres every six hours.

As a result, it concluded: “We believe the General Medical Council should investigate any incident where doctors working in sport have failed to properly record the medicines they are supplying to their athletes.”

The GMC has a practice of not commenting on investigations but said today: “We are looking into information passed on to us by UK Anti-Doping and are investigating if further action needs to be taken.”

Chakraverty joined the FA in 2016 under then England manager Sam Allardyce.

The FA were not making an official comment this morning but the team doctor’s position is not believed to be under threat, as the organisation are comfortable with his handling of the Farah injection.

Chakraverty, the former lead doctor at UK Athletics, defended the poor record taking in 2014 on the fact he was in charge of 140 athletes and short staffed on the medical side.

Meanwhile, former UKA chairman Ed Warner at the time branded the lack of records as “inexcusable”.

He had said: “If my child went to see the GP and he or she failed to record something on their records, it would be as inexcusable as not recording something on Mo Farah’s records.” However, he said it was wrong to “tar us with the same brush as cycling.”