Football Focus: John Terry – fall from grace for the king of English soccer

John Terry had the most influential job in English society, more so perhaps than Prime Minister David Cameron. He was the captain of the country’s soccer team. Millions of young people watched his every move, week in week out at Chelsea. Cameron appears occasionally on the Nine o’clock News.

Speaking to former Manchester United player Paul Parker, it becomes clear that captaining England at Euro 2012 was more important than life itself for Terry.

“It would have given him legendary status and a nice after-glow to a trophy-decked career,” says Parker. But when Terry said what he (allegedly) said to Anton Ferdinand on the 21st of October last year in a Premiership game between Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers, he threw all that away. The 30 year old has since been charged with racial abuse.

His lawyers will have shown him the evidence which is also there for everyone to see on YouTube, and it is extremely damning.

As Parker puts it “This is entirely different to the Luis Suarez – Patrice Evra situation. There is no language barrier here, Terry‘s words were very clear.”

So desperate was the man from East London to hold onto his armband that his lawyers had delayed the trial until July 9 after Euro 2012. The reason? Many of the Chelsea players would be unable to attend due to soccer commitments!

The move backfired. The media and Twitter world erupted. Jason Roberts, a striker at Blackburn Rovers, tweeted the ‘England dressing room would be toxic unless the correct decision is made’. He was referring to the fact that Anton Ferdinand’s brother Rio would very likely be selected for the England squad. Members of parliament accused Terry of being an embarrassment and demanded his captaincy be stripped. From the Terry Camp came the statement “I will
not resign.”

There are also more immediate questions. This weekend Chelsea play Rio Ferdinand’s Manchester United. Will the pair shake hands, as they have been ordered to, by the Football Association, before the match?

For many in the game the whole situation is a running sore, made raw by constant needling from the media. “The FA should have dealt with this straight away,” says Parker. “Chelsea should have made sure Andres Villas-Boas kept quiet and did not come out in support of Terry. They should have assembled the facts and punished the player themselves. This was just a ‘drip drip’ situation for the media — it’s great for selling newspapers but bad for the game.”

Twenty years ago, when Parker was active, abusive players got away with it, because there simply weren’t enough cameras to catch them. “Some players said a few nasty things to me, but no one did anything about it. If I’d said anything — they’d have labeled me as weak, and I’d have been out of the club.” Parker frequently heard the chant “There ain’t no black in the Union Jack” from the fans, but he said it made him stronger and he played better.

But Parker is very clear. The camera showed Terry saying something extremely unpleasant and the fact that he remained at the top of the country’s most influential sport was an embarrassment.

If Terry did not go he needed to be pushed. The problems have only just begun for the FA who are thought to be engineering a compromise where having stripped him of the captaincy they will allow him to compete for his England place. But what about punishment? If Suarez was banned for eight games for evidence that was largely circumstantial, what will they hand out to Terry if he is found guilty?

Christy Simson presents on SportsCenter on ESPN, every weekday at 7:30 p.m.