Terry Retires from International Duty

Had to stick this in here as the International section seems to be locked for some reason?

So Terry has announced his position as an England player has become untenable after the FA decided to proceed with accusations of racism despite him being cleared by the courts.
Most here will know, I am not Terry's biggest fan, however I respect what he has given our national team and completely understand his decision. He has been dragged through the legal courts unlike most other allegations of incidents in football and after suffering that humiliating ordeal, finds out the association he has given his career to serve plan to drag him back through it. I personally think it should never have hit the courts, but as soon as it did, the FA should have taken the courts decision.

This is my opinion and I'd love yours as always. Either way it is a sad day for England who looked to have a good few years of Terry-Cahill-Cole Partnerships from Chelsea as well as a few Man Utd links higher up the pitch. These partnerships are the key to successful international teams I think, look at Barcemadrid....I mean Spain.

I wish Terry limited success in all his future English/European football endeavours

I moved it to the International forum and have managed to unlock this forum, something I have been trying to do for months. It seems that I could start a new topic and while others could reply to that topic they couldn't start any new topics.


As for Terry's retirement, I will sleep on it before posting on too much of a high from today's win at Anfield.

4 match ban and £220,000 fine. Seems to be what everyone was predicting would happen, what with the burden of proof being less in a FA hearing than in a criminal court.

As for the retirement from International duty, I am not really sure what to make of it. The FA have said they are two unrelated issues and Hodgson has said he will pick him for England again if Terry changes his mind about the retirement. I suppose he could play in the next qualifier if he comes out of retirement, the four match ban is only for Chelsea games.

The FA have obviously found him guilty of racial abuse and given that they have done this, decided it warrants a 4 game ban only and weeks wages.

That is the price of racism?

I'm not saying he did it for a second, but to punish him, the FA must believe he did... and this is the price they put on that crime?

An 8 ban game for Suarez wasnt even enough, but this makes a mockery of the system altogether.

We need to see the written report explaining the charge and the reasons for the conviction. They charged Terry with using abusive language and/or behaviour that included a reference to Ferdinand's ethnic origin. They didn't charge him with racial abuse. I know there is a fine line but it's a legal one.

I think the FA feels that the language used was abusive, no matter what the context it is said in or whether you really mean it or not. That there is just no place in football for that type of language and hence the four game suspension which they deem to be the minimum for these types of offensives.

Hopefully the written report will clarify what the FA was thinking. It's possible that they feel that there was no racism intended or that there is reasonable doubt, and that the suspension is down to the abusive language that was used.

The few football shows and newspapers that cover it over here are of the believe that the suspension is light for something they see as racial abuse and it is thought that it would have been dealt with harsher if it had happened in North America.

If the FA deemed this to be racial abuse than a four game suspension does seem to be too lenient, but let's wait until the written report and hope it clarifies what Terry was found guilty of.

The panel says that Terry "is not a racist" but it is "satisfied" his comments were used as an insult.

It seems to be me that it is the abusive language that was used which concerned the FA and not that they have found him guilty of racial abuse.

Both the Court and the FA while feeling his defense was improbable, implausible, and contrived, have stated that Terry is not a racist. That has to be the "saving grace" for Terry as Chelsea can continue to back him claiming that he's only guilty of saying something stupid in the heat of battle. ( which to be honest is what I believed all along.) If both or either the Court or the FA panel concluded that he was a racist, Terry could have been forced out of football completely.

Hopefully this will come to an end and we can move on. However, it wouldn't surprise me if Terry takes this to The Court of Arbitration for Sport and argues that the FA’s own rules prevented cases from being heard by the governing body if they had previously been dealt with by a court of law. (Paragraph 6.8 of the FA regulations)

Plus Ashley Cole's reaction to the FA claiming he amended his witness statement by adding the word "black" to help Terry's defense, doesn't help. I expect he will be facing a fine at least for his abusive tweet.

I am pretty bored of the whole thing to be truthful. The end game isnt in sight yet, & I feel Johns decision to retire from England could well have much stronger reasons behind it, which I will try n highlight later. Take a look at this,


10 fatal flaws in the FA disciplinary panel's ruling on John Terry.

It runs to 63 pages, and is the FA's justification of its findings. But the panel's written ruling is a flawed document containing errors and inconsistencies.
1. It states as fact Terry and Ashley Cole met Anton Ferdinand 'approximately one hour after the match ended'. Documentary evidence in court proved the team had left by then.
2. There is reference to 'Mr Ferdinand's wife'. He is unmarried.
3. There is no adequate explanation of why Terry was charged under FA rules while Ferdinand, who admitted having breached them, wasn't.
4. The FA's burden of proof required reference to the seriousness of the accusations. It is perverse a matter deemed by the criminal justice system to require a 'beyond reasonable doubt' yardstick, be judged upon using anything but that.
5. In reasoning on the FA's rule 6.18 (on the primacy of findings in previous tribunals), the panel goes on a meandering run across the face of the defence, attempting to pick-out the one threadneedle route by which they might reach their intended target. This is not only bad law, it is also an irrational conclusion setting a bizarre precedent.
6. The panel takes the view that because Ferdinand wasn't cross-examined during the FA hearing, all evidence was accepted unchallenged. A position ignoring cross examination of Ferdinand in court.
7. The panel emphasises Terry's use of profanities to infer malice. These are the same words three professional footballers told the criminal court were a part of the general punctuation of speech within Premier League matches.
8. The panel's belief an innocent Terry would confront Ferdinand at full time, rather than applaud his own fans, misapprehends the character he has displayed over the last 14 years.
9. A section headed 'the Barcelona evidence' compares Terry's initial reported denial of kneeing Alexis Sanchez in Camp Nou, with his latter admission. The panel takes certain inferences from this, despite having been unable to prove the existence of the initial denial. Indeed, having listened back to interviews from that night, I cannot find any evidence of an initial denial.
10. The panel sets stall by the 'evolution of Cole's evidence. It is normal for witness statements in criminal proceedings to evolve in this way. Changes are to be expected given Cole's evidence was based on notes of the FA's investigating team, and not a tape recording.
Taken together these flaws demonstrate that the FA panel was both slapdash and irrational in its approach to this case.


The above ten were put together by a legally trained and qualified and with 20 years experience of working with the law. For him, it does not add up & has too many holes in it to stand up in a court of law.



Now take the time to read Martin Samuels weekend piece in the Mail.


FA's silky skills won the day but no-one was happy with the result

Since 1989, Chambers and Partners have been researching the legal profession in the United Kingdom, identifying its leading protagonists through interviews with thousands of lawyers and their clients. They rate Jonathan Laidlaw QC as one of the eight ‘star silks’ practising at the criminal bar in Britain.

And this was the man chosen by the Football Association to present their case against John Terry.

A lot was written about Terry’s engagement of leading barrister George Carter-Stephenson, to plead his defence. The picture painted was of a man who needed the best available legal mind, to give his flimsy case credibility.

One presumed from here that the FA were on such sure ground, they could almost be represented by a senior member of their in-house legal team.

Not quite. As Treasury Counsel, Laidlaw brought Britain’s first war crimes case and acted as prosecution in the trial of the Provisional IRA bombing of Canary Wharf, the Official Secrets Act prosecution of David Shayler, the Jill Dando murder trial, the trial of the Al Qaeda cell that planned pre-9/11 attacks in the United States and United Kingdom, the trial of the Al Qaeda attack on Glasgow Airport and of Delroy Grant, the ‘Night Stalker’, who received four life sentences and is believed responsible for roughly 100 cases of rape, sexual assault and burglary.

Laidlaw is described by Chambers as ‘an extraordinarily able advocate’ with ‘lethal cross-examination skills’, a ‘mean way with closing speeches’ and ‘advocacy skills right out of the top drawer.’

And this was the FA’s silk of choice. You might say they needed the win. Laidlaw’s brand of excellence does not come cheap. He would certainly have been an upgrade even on the estimable Duncan Perry, the barrister who prosecuted Terry at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Then again, just as Terry required a silver-tongued performer to convince that his offensive words were not said in anger, the FA would have wished for an equally smooth operator to explain why it changed article 7.3 of its regulations this summer to lower the burden of proof in civil cases and why it ignored article 6.8 and an earlier suggestion to Terry that a not-guilty verdict from Westminster’s Chief Magistrate would apply to his FA case, too.

Whatever problems the world has with Terry — and it is entitled to plenty — the FA process stands up to no greater scrutiny than his defence.

The most laughable speculation suggests the governing body could now investigate Ashley Cole, for the supposed evolution of his evidence. He gave an interview to the FA and then, when his recollections were presented as a statement for signature, had a word inserted that strengthened Terry’s case.

The disciplinary panel found this a bit whiffy and as good as called Cole a liar. Yet suppose the FA wished to pursue the matter? No tape was placed on Cole’s interview and the FA did not initially disclose the written notes taken by a former employee, even to police. The FA want it all ways.

The four-match ban given by an independent commission containing an FA vice-president from Huntingdonshire, a chairman the FA appointed and a third member who — for the duration of the hearing — was on the FA payroll, seems soft, considering the violence of the language in question and the conclusion that Terry and his cohorts had systematically lied about it for almost a year.

Yet because the FA’s behaviour in this matter has been inconsistent, to put it mildly, they were once again disinclined to make the final connection between racist words and racism. So Terry, like Luis Suarez, isn’t racist. He’s just a bloke who calls a black person an FBC and then lies about it. Which is, coincidentally, precisely the sort of thing a racist might do.

Chelsea are under increasing pressure to remove Terry as captain and understandably so, yet the FA won’t join the dots on Terry — and didn’t on Suarez — because to do so would almost certainly provoke further challenge in a higher court, shining light on a process that could not withstand rigorous scrutiny.

So we have this horrid compromise, in which the punishment is harsh enough to imply the FA is serious about racism, but the verdict is not so damning that the guilty party has no option but to appeal. Leaving nobody happy.




I suggest Mr. Samuel, like me, has seen where this is heading too.



Bottom line, a man who proves his innocents in the courts of our land, should never be then judged by a tin pot kangeroo court. I for one hope John takes a leaf out of Sir Alan Sugars book and blows the FA out of the water in the high court.

Also, check this out, emailed to me by a fellow Chelsea fan by Ron Liddle ..... I am amazed Liddle actually comes out expressing the witch hunt.


An excellent and brave piece on the Terry Witch Hunt by Rod Liddle in The Times.

We know that he did not racially abuse the QPR defender because a court cleared him.When a court in England clears you, you are not guilty. Thats what it means.However, when allegations of racism are flying around, the guilt always manages to adhere, regardless of the facts or outcome of the legal process.

There is a fascistic and paranoid flavour to the hounding of those regarded as guilty of racism, all the more so in the case of John Terry presumably because he is very well-off, doesnt always seem like the nicest chap in the world (Ive never met him, so I cannot confirm this) and achieved the highest honour a footballer can hope for captaining his country.

So Terry has been caught in a nasty pincer movement occasioned by our twin national psychoses: racism and a loathing of success. Only the lawyers can win. Well sure, the lawyers always win. You might as well say that only the lawyers won in the original court case in which in case the intimation of guilt is still hanging around Terry was found not guilty.

A case so fundamentally ludicrous that neither the alleged victim nor indeed anybody else witnessed the crime upon which Terry had been arraigned. A crime that nobody saw or heard. We were left to be entertained by lip readers second-guessing what might have been said and the manner in which it might have been said. A court case occasioned by the imaginary hurt that might possibly have been done to someone if the bad thing had actually been said and heard, but which, actually, wasnt, as it transpired.

Years from now we will look back and wonder how we could have allowed ourselves to be so gripped by this madness. I suppose Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, would have said it was a consequence of collective guilt, or something, that by persecuting someone else for racism we somehow exculpate ourselves and our dodgy history, recent and not so recent.

And everyone in a position of authority or faux authority by which I mean the journos, the hacks went along with this insanity because to question the legitimacy of the howl-round, the fury, the determination to stitch up John Terry like a racist kipper, was by association to be sort of guilty of being racist oneself. And thats a career-ending thing, isnt it? And it doesnt matter how vigorously you try to shrug it off, the charge always adheres. We really are in witch-hunt territory.

It reminds me of that ducking stool they had for witches. The accused was strapped into a device, which was then lowered into a pond or river: if she lives, shes a witch, if she drowns shes okay. Thats the sort of choice we offered Terry: not guilty, huh? Well see about that.

Only the lawyers stand to gain. So drop your appeal, Terry, you racist scumbag, and accept the verdict of a Football Association kangaroo court which was minded far more by that howl-round, that determination that Terry should somehow be found guilty, than by any consideration of the facts. Or indeed by common sense.

Why should Terry submit to this outrage? Why shouldnt he fight it? The bloke has been vilified day after day for nine months, he has been stripped wrongly of the captaincy of the national team, he has been retrospectively convicted of being a racist "on the balance of probabilities", fined £220,000 and banned from playing for four matches.

And he is supposed to sit back and endure this establishment-induced calumny and spite for what reason? Because he is rich? Because he plays football? This is a working-class bloke who grew up with black footballers, played with them each week and whose closest friends are black. He is probably far better integrated into our multiracial society than some magnolia-skinned bienpensant half-wit writing editorials for The Guardian, or indeed the puffed-up monkeys who comprise the senior levels of the FA.

Why, then, should he just sit back and take it when the middle-class liberal establishment rules he is a racist, regardless of the court case that decided actually he wasnt? I suspect he thinks he has sat back and taken it for too long. And I think hes right. Ill chip into his appeal fund, if he needs it.

Not with very much money, just enough to pay one of his lawyers for 42 seconds.My guess is that most people in this country think that this whole farrago has been confected, whipped up, and that Terry is being unfairly persecuted. But you wont find this sentiment widely expressed in the national media for the reasons I have suggested above. It is one of those occasions when the sentiments of our rulers, and the pressure groups, and the gobby commentators, are quite out of step with public opinion. But as I say, this is only a guess.

Not my work ~ Someone far more intelligent


Top 6 John Terry race case myths: a cut-out-and-keep guide.


After five days of defending the 'indefensible' (not my word), I thought it was time to put together a Top 6 Most-Repeated Myths about the John Terry case.



6 “He said the words – he is guilty.”

We've all seen the video. I was in court, so I've seen it more than most. John Terry clearly says the words: “F***ing black c***.” That is not, and never has been, a matter of debate. But the prosecution lawyer, the defence QC, the magistrate, the lip-readers all said those words in court too. They can't all be guilty can they? It is impossible to approach this without employing context.

5 “The the court found him not guilty because there wasn't enough evidence.”

A trial for racially-aggravated public order is usually expected to hear an hour or two of evidence. Maybe half a day. John Terry's trial heard (and saw) four days' worth. The amount of evidence was incredible: supermarket trolleys full. The court found him not guilty because there was reasonable doubt in the case.

4 “John Terry has admitted Anton Ferdinand never said 'f***ing black c***.”

No he has not. He has admitted Ferdinand may not have said it: that he may have been mistaken as to what Ferdinand said. There is a very major difference.

3 “John Terry / Ashley Cole lied in court.”

Much of this one stems from the panel's talk of the 'evolution' of Cole's evidence. It is quite normal for witness statements in criminal cases to evolve: particularly when they are at first compiled only by an inquisitor with notebook and pen, and then typed-up marked as 'draft'. The panel has taken certain inferences from language used in the court judgement. This said Terry's explanation was “under the cold light of forensic examination, unlikely”, but also “possible”. The Magistrate, a lawyer, would have been aware in writing this that unlikely things happen every day.

2 “John Terry was never cleared in court, only 'found not guilty'.”

This is one which seems to have gathered pace, for some reason, following the FA panel's report. English criminal law only has two outcomes: 'guilty', and 'not guilty'. If you are 'not guilty' (as John Terry was found), you have been cleared. Nobody is ever found 'innocent'.

1 “John Terry is a racist.”

Not according to the prosecution in his court case, the Magistrate in the same case, the FA, the FA's independent panel, or Lord Herman Ouseley – the Chairman of Kick It Out. All have gone to the lengths of saying that John Terry is not a racist.[u]