Taking away John Terry’s armband but letting his trial be delayed isn’t the way to show that racist abuse is a serious charge
The FA’s decision that John Terry should no longer be England captain is the right one, but for the wrong reasons.
Any suggestion that he might be distracted from the job at hand, leading England at Euro 2012, simply doesn’t add up. Terry is captaining Chelsea week in, week out, with no obvious impact on his ability to put in the crunching tackles and well-aimed headers, plus the gutsy leadership on the pitch he is rightly renowned for. Likewise, if it is suggested his England captaincy under the cloud of the forthcoming trial for racist abuse might harm the image of English football, then what is he doing captaining one of the most high-profile teams in our League and about to recommence their Champions League campaign too?
No, today’s decision by the FA is a model of indecisive action. The alleged incident took place at a game in October 2011. Almost two months later the Crown Prosecution Service decides there is sufficient evidence for a case to answer. Another two months on and finally the case came to court this week only for it to be announced that the trial will be delayed until after Euro 2012, on July 9 – nine months after the alleged incident.
Various reasons have been given for the delay, the main one being that Terry, Anton Ferdinand and the various witnesses likely to be called were too busy playing football. The danger is that this seems to suggest the offence of racist abuse of a player isn’t that serious, and can wait until the end of the season to be sorted out. But it is unlikely this would be a drawn-out case – it should take a week or a fortnight at most – and if it had gone to trial at the end of this month, when England are due to play a friendly match, perhaps only one or two games at most would have been missed. Why couldn’t the FA have had a loud word in the ear of both clubs – whose concerns over players being called both for the defence and prosecution influenced the judge’s decision to postpone the trial – and made it clear that they expected this issue to be dealt with quickly, and that dragging it on would do nobody any favours.
Instead we have today’s messy decision, for which the only plausible explanation is that the FA fears that if Terry were convicted, England would have been captained at the Euros by a proven racist.
This case should have been dealt with in the same way any public servant accused of racial abuse would be treated: immediately suspended on full pay and given the opportunity to clear their name as quickly as possible. A Premier League footballer, particularly one who represents his country too, should be no different from a teacher, a nurse, or a policeman. They take all the riches earned via becoming a “role model”; and should therefore accept the responsibilities too.
Decisive leadership by the FA would have helped force the pace of both the investigation and date of the trial from the start. We’ve been treated instead to anything but.
And where does this leave us now? Most thought football had moved on decisively from the racism it indulged in the 1970s and 1980s. The game even seemed ready to grapple with the complexities of exclusion that, for instance, have left us with just two clubs out of the 92 in the Premier and Football Leagues with black managers. But instead we are left questioning whether football is as serious about kicking out racism as we once thought it was.
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John TerryRace issuesThe FAChelseaEnglandPremier LeagueMark Perryman
guardian.co.uk
