He is the captain of the team?

Given my previous piece describing my views on the whole John Terry / England Captain issue it seemed only right that I should continue in this vein after today’s news, that Terry has been stripped of the captains armband without any reason  (see previous post for justification).

Fabio Capello, for his part, has come out on TV to express that he was totally against this and since the FA made the wrong decision and is now being lambasted for doing so. For a positive view on this visit here but for my part here is why I think David Bond and Capello’s other detractors are wrong.

As previously said – there is no proof of what John Terry is alleged to have said and done and there is certainly no guilty verdict which I think is the only justification for the FA to intervene in the matter.

The FA are arguing that Capello is wrong to denounce their decision in public and are even claiming that it breaches his contract as manager. Now, it may well breach the contract, I don’t know, but it surely says something about the level of the FA that they need to right into a contract “must agree with us when we make decisions that are nothing to do with us”. Capello is being paid a lot of money to make team decisions for England and has already made public his intention not to change his captain until a verdict was reached. Is it any wonder that he feels slightly aggrieved at what the FA have done? If anyone has undermined a previously stated opinion from the man in charge it’s them.

Capello wanted Terry to remain captain

There has also been a lot of self congratulatory applause for David Bernstein and the FA for being willing to take a strong stance on an important issue and making the decision that everyone knows is the right one. I’m afraid I have to disagree here as well, because the allegations about Terry stem from a match three months ago! If the FA had a policy (which as far as I’m aware it doesn’t) saying that a player under investigation for racial abuse and other like offences will be removed from captaincy until the investigation is complete AND the FA had then immediately stripped Terry of his position then it would make sense (though to my mind, still be completely unjust). By doing what they have done Bernstein and his colleagues have shown once again that the FA are completely clueless about how to deal with big issues and instead have dithered for 3 months before making a decisions the manager didn’t want because they thought it was what the people wanted. The people may have wanted it, but that is far from a compelling reason to do it and does not make it the right call.

Finally, there is also the comment that I made in the previous post that if Terry is not fit to lead the country because of allegations and pending court cases, how then he fit to represent the country at all? But wait I forgot – that’s the manager’s decision picking the players! Unless of course the public makes a clear compelling case in which case watch this space is about 3 months time….