John Terry,The England Captaincy and A Bigger Issue

My plan today was to write a single post previewing the RBS Six Nations but plainly today’s events mean that will not be possible… thanks John Terry! So today will turn into a bumper three post session. One about the Terry affair which you will be able to read if you scroll down, the Six Nations preview and one looking at the new F1 cars that have been unveiled so far.

Anyway, onto the Terry affair. For those of you who haven’t seen the news yet then I suggest you click this hyperlink as it forms the basis for this whole article. For those of you who read my blog on the Tom Adeyemi incident (thank you if you did) then you will know what I think of Mr Terry. Here’s the link if you didn’t: https://theeternalsunshineofthesportingmind.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/tackling-race-in-football-not-just-a-foreign-problem/

My first question regarding today’s news is why has it taken this long to take the necessary action? If this was any other industry or any job then Terry would have been suspended (from both club and country) with full pay while the investigation was carried out with the distinct possibility that when the case reached court that he would be sacked by Chelsea and ineligible for national selection. Yet this is not the case. He is still collecting his 150k a week wage packet and is still playing top level football every week. I’m not saying that Terry is guilty because he is innocent until proven otherwise but it seems as though this court case has been taken too lightly by Chelsea in particular. An accusation of racism is a highly serious matter and Terry should have been stripped of the captaincy at Stamford Bridge at least while the case continues.

John Terry will no longer but England captain but should he be in the squad at all?

I respect Terry’s past abilities but his latest performances have let him and his side down but to many Chelsea fans he is irreplaceable and I disagree with that. Chelsea have signed numerous centre-backs in the last couple of years and Gary Cahill could step up and do the job that Terry currently does. Now, England is a completely different matter. When you play for England you’re not just representing a corner of West London but the whole country, every single corner of it. England is a country that is proudly anti-racist despite the BNP’s attempts to penetrate that solid foundation. That is why it is inconceivable that Terry should be allowed to remain as captain; he is playing in a team that contains a number of black players and the cloud surrounding this accusation would be hugely damaging in the dressing room. Besides, there are a number of other players who could step in and take the reins as captain – Ferdinand, Gerrard, Scott Parker to name but three.

So, it’s right that the FA have stripped him of the captaincy but he is still allowed to be selected for Euro 2012, despite his court case beginning just a week after the tournament ends. We can’t let this happen again. Our World Cup campaign was damaged by the Terry/Bridge scandal and Capello struggled to cope with a divided squad. Look what happened in South Africa, we barely raised so much as a whimper in the group games while Germany would have walked all over us even if Lampard’s goal had counted. If Capello picks Terry (which he will despite  younger players who are in better form being available) then this issue will dominate the build-up to the Euros and it’s not like in the 50s and 60s that when you leave to go to a major tournament you can just switch all the damaging stories off. You can’t switch off the internet, you can’t stop people checking Twitter despite clubs trying to. The point is that this issue will follow the team everywhere, journalists will keep prodding it in people’s faces and the tabloids will cover it as much as they can. Granted, the FA has been dealt a tough hand by the seemingly stupid decision to delay the court case by a massive ten months but I don’t think removing the captaincy from Terry is a big enough step to improve England’s chances at Euro 2012. He shouldn’t be on that plane to eastern Europe, not just because of this incident but because he has been shown to be lacking the form and ability of old and considering our weakest area of the team is our defence, that could be highly dangerous.

Players flee as the rioting crowd head towards them

This week in football has been about a much bigger issue than that. The riot in the Al-Ahly game was shocking and shameful. There is a reputation for violence in Egyptian games and the lack of police presence allowed what took place to happen. Reports of knives being brought into the ground is completely unacceptable and the consequences of this event reach far beyond football. It has de-stabilised the entire Egyptian revolution and left the interim government in a real mess. The sad fact is that because of a shock 3-1 win for Al Masry, the reputation of the African game has been thrown into disrepute. The African Cup of Nations has been a fantastic tournament so far but this will overshadow the remainder of it. The Egyptian revolution should have brought people together and allowed football fans to rally behind a common cause instead of throwing hate towards each other. It may be the case that the revolution wasn’t as perfect as everyone thought in the spring of 2011.

Tackling Race in Football: Not just a Foreign Problem

Another week, another story of racism rearing its ugly head in English football. After the Suarez and Terry scandals we now have the re-emergence of racist chanting from the stands. Tom Adeyemi was seen to be visibly upset from something that the someone or a group of people had shouted at him from the Kop during Oldham’s FA Cup tie against Liverpool. What makes this so worrying is not just the racist element of the chanting but the fact that a small minority of fans are mistaking supporting their heroes in a time of trouble with replicating their behaviour. This happened earlier in the season of course with some Chelsea fans directing offensive chants towards Anton Ferdinand. It seems to me that English football is at a crucial crossroads in the fight against racism. Racism was thought of as being almost eradicated from English football stadia for the last decade or so now but these recent weeks prove that the problem was merely pushed beneath the surface.

Tom Adeyami is comforted by a team-mate after the incident against Liverpool

There has been an attitude of superiority from English football towards European leagues and the issues that the eastern European leagues have had with racism in recent years. People have pointed to the Suarez incident as proof that it is the foreign players who have caused the latest racist incidents but the Terry case undermines this theory and is worthy of further analysis. John Terry is more than just an English player, he is the English national team captain as well as Chelsea captain and is a role model as a result of this added responsibility – despite the FA and Chelsea believing otherwise. Terry is a good captain; a born leader but as man he has clear weaknesses in his make-up. He lacks the ability to control his temper, is not the strongest technically skilled defender in the Premier League and in his advancing years has lost the edge of his pace meaning that he can no longer attack a corner in confidence – knowing that he might not be able to defend against the break any more. The Anton Ferdinand incident could be put down to a loss of temper but I believe in karma and unfortunately for John the repercussions of this episode may be intensified because of past misdemeanours.

Ultimately, the FA and the police need to take a firm stance on any proven racist incident in English football. A lot of good work has been done to eliminate the problem of racism from the game but there needs to be a redoubling of their efforts to stop the fire being stoked again. When we lost the 2018 World Cup bid, we were quick to condemn the Russian fans for their treatment of black players but now that stance seems hypocritical with a possible prison sentence for the England captain, an eight game ban for one of the Premier League’s most exciting players and the arrest of a Liverpool fan for a racially aggravated public order offence. Let’s stamp this out, once and for all.