My guess about Terry's case

 

Mr Rod Liddle’s column titled ‘Terry becomes a football for nation’s neuroses’ (Sunday Times on 30 September 2012) is one of the only a few articles written about Terry that sounds sensible to me. At certain point, Mr Liddel seems he is talking about himself then he agitates Terry without committing any responsibilities on his side more than anything else as Mr Liddle is known to be a Millwall supporter I am not sure if Terry feels comfortable with his encouragement. None the less, I feel it is helpful to Japanese readers of this blog to understand the situation or part of it, I carried a gist of rough translation of the article, I hope Mr Liddle do not claim the infringement.

Additional to Mr Liddel’s points I would like to list several points why such a case so fundamentally ludicrous that neither the alleged victim nor nobody indeed witnessed the crime upon which Terry had been arraigned received so much attention.

 

 My interpretation is that this farrago has been confected by QPR, whipped up by Rio and served by indiscreet FA. Now I suspect FA is regretting for this case not that they postpone the decision after the criminal trial but that they charged Terry at all based on the only feeble evidence, emotional response in the beautiful name of zero tolerance. Once you come to senses it is obvious that if Terry appeals FA is sure to lose, they have no legal ground to win at all, so they gave Terry the lightest penalty they can think of and they are now asking, no, begging to Terry to forget the case, nothing serious had happened, let’s look at the future, John, of course it does not work that way, does it? It now depends on John and Bruce Buck.

 

Please recall the game on the night, 23 October 2011, Chelsea lost 0-1 to QPR. Dubious PK ten minutes from the start, papers said Chelsea lost discipline and composure as two players were sent off before the break and seven yellow cards after the break. In truth Chelsea players did not lost discipline or composure, instead they showed real spirit and unity within the team. It was one of a few Premier games in that miserable season other than UCL that Chelsea players showed real determination. Check the stat, 9 man Chelsea almost ravaged 11 man QPR. Stephen Warnock and contingent must have resented the humiliation, they tried everything to spoil Chelsea’s robustness, and ruin Chelsea’s supremacy and they talked big of TV footage. Even a QPR supporting officer brought a criminal charge against Chelsea(Terry) to the local court, which later turned out to be a senseless act.

Anton Ferdinand did not have any bitter feeling against Terry or Ashley Cole after the game, that is what he said, but one year later he refused to shake hands before the game and showed hostility against them why? Does he now hear the words he did not hear during the game?  According to him(papers) his girlfriend told him when he returned home that TV was making a big issue about the case. But his girlfriend was not in a position to know the situation better than Anton. On the other hand, his big brother Rio seemed convinced of Terry’s guilt from the start; he even racially abused Ashley Cole who took the stand of Terry. Pak also refused to shake hand with Terry, I do not think Pak and Anton were that close but I know he was a protégé of ManU captain. Even though nobody explicitly talks the suspicion, an outsider like me can easily guess the motives of Rio’s remarks. I also suspect that is the real reason which made Capello furious.  Probably it was one of those secrets everybody in the business knew but officially would never be told;  Roy Hodgson will never recall Rio, Fergie and Neville were afraid that Rio might make further silly remarks so that they had to warn Rio in different manners.

Then this is Terry against Ferdinand clan. Not the case of racial abuse. FA inadvertently took the side of Rio’s vendetta.

 FA’s system is different from that of the criminal procedures, is what they say. Yes it is different, FA has lighter burden of proof than criminal courts. I can agree that but only until court does not come to conclusion. Once court makes a decision you cannot change that decision without a new evidence or distinctive misunderstanding is proved. If you do that it would be a serious challenge against British judicial system.

Ex-FA official said both parties had learned a lesson. Wrong, FA learned a lesson. As I said earlier, FA is now begging Terry to sheathe his sward to keep face. Then it looks like Terry makes his own decision, FA leaked the idea of appealing to get a tighter penalty to threaten him, what a dirty trick! If it were in USA they would have made compromised agreement under attorney-and-client-privilege and settled by now.

 Ex-FA chief Mr Triesman was reportedly said black players were let down by Terry’s case, Terry should have been deported from English camp immediately or something like that. Current senior official must be scared that old man who lost touch to reality might say something jeopardised FA’s position. I wonder how many black players Triesman has discussed about Terry case. If there were any, they must be all Rio’s friends but I suspect there were any. I suspect most black players do not care if Terry is racist or not especially if they know Terry personally, in case they were let down by now it is because that race issue has been abused for Rio’s personal vengeance.

 I think Terry will only accept the penalty if FA explicitly says, ‘We have to penalise you because regardless of the intention you used certain language that contains racial abuse, from the way you use them you did not intend to racially abuse someone and it does not mean you are a racist, so FA understand.’ I know it cannot be done.

Terry may get tired of the fiasco, he may just say OK and give up an appeal tomorrow or today. I have no idea, as what I wrote above is all my guess.