The FA, John Terry and disrepute

I read with disgust an article saying that the FA was about to charge Ferdinand and Terry with bringing the game into disrepute.

As you know, I care less than little for football.  Except when Mr B has Man City on, of course  — I join in then.

However, the fact that the game’s footballing body does little to censure players sleeping with other players wives, going to prostitutes,  having affairs, then getting injunctions to hide them, but thinks it can punish people outside of the law, is just wrong-headed.

We, as a nation, put our footballers on pedestals.    We tell young players with talent that one day they might be playing for the great clubs.   We have talent scouts watching games for just that reason.    We make footballers role models.   We give them a god like status.

Shag around and hide behind the law-we’ll still pick you to REPRESENT THE COUNTRY. Go *to* the law when your governing body sits on their hands (probably too busy brown-nosing Platini to get UEFA’s vote for the World Cup) and you’ll get fined.

The arrogance beggars belief.

Any attempt to fine John Terry, odious man that he appears to be, will end up in farce, at the Court for Arbitration in Sport, in Terry’s favour.

Any attempt to fine Anton Ferdinand will be roundly condemned everywhere.

If anyone has brought football into disrepute, it is the quasi-legal proceedings at the FA that do not respect the law, and their continued selection of players we wouldn’t allow in our local pub.

Garth Crooks has said this weekend:

The real problem in the Terry case began once the FA failed to take immediate action.   This lack of fibre by the governing body to act instantly when Terry gave them a statement after the verbal clash with Ferdinand, threw the entire procedure into chaos — forcing everyone associated with the game to either dive for cover or sit on the fence.

And that in a nutshell is what has brought the FA into disrepute, in my mind.

In the case last year of Suarez and Evra, a case that never came to court, the FA acted immediately and issued a ban.     Rightly so.

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further:  racism is reprehensible.    But I strongly believe it is not racism that is bringing the game into disrepute.

The idea that the FA can now decide to ban Terry “for bringing the game into disrepute” is, in itself, what is bringing the game into disrepute.      They didn’t act when it happened, they want to act now.

What utter utter <insert own expletive>