Real Madrid doctors accused of using ChatGPT to diagnose Mbappe injury

Sports nutritionist Itziar González has reignited controversy within Real Madrid, amid escalating criticism directed at the club’s medical staff regarding their handling of French star Kylian Mbappe’s injury.

Spanish journalist Miguel Ángel Díaz alleged that:

Real Madrid, in their initial diagnosis, got the knee wrong. Instead of examining Mbappé’s left knee, they examined his right.

According to Díaz, this meant Mbappe played football when he should have been resting, potentially aggravating the injury.

Mbappe injury storm

González – who no longer works for Real Madrid – ignited a media firestorm after González intervened, asserting on her Instagram account that some of the medical staff’s decisions were based on free artificial intelligence programs, a direct reference to ChatGPT. She considered this evidence of a lack of professional standards within the club’s medical system.

A translation of her remarks asks whether scanning the wrong knee is worse than the alleged use of ChatGPT:

Although I don’t know what’s worse: this, or them prescribing supplements based on free Chat-GPT.

The conflict between González and Real Madrid’s management is not new. She has clashed repeatedly with the doctors throughout her tenure, due to her insistence on a central role for nutrition in injury treatment, rather than simply preparing meals.

According to the website Espana, these tensions culminated in her dismissal, before she later resorted to legal action last December, a move aimed – according to those close to her – at exposing what she describes as “internal dysfunctions.”

In scathing remarks, González addressed Mbappé directly, saying, “we hope to find competent and well-trained people, instead of ignorant narcissists who obtained their positions through connections,” adding that some employees “remain in their positions despite the damage they cause.”

However, Mbappe has distanced himself from the rumours and furore:

My knee is fine. It’s getting better.

It’s going quite well, and I know there’s been a lot of speculation about it and some false things have been said.

It’s the life of a top athlete, and we’re used to people saying things without verifying them or having any basis in fact.

Featured image via the Canary