Terry Retires over Potential Guilty Verdict

Nearly a year after John Terry allegedly used “abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour” towards Anton Ferdinand during a premier league football match on October 23rd 2011 and the debacle is still ongoing. Terry, 31, decided that the night before his FA hearing was the perfect time to announce his international retirement, claiming that the FA made his position untenable, merely hours after Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez shook hands in an attempt to finally put aside their own personal issues over race.

Terry was charged by the FA on July 27th 2012 and has since represented his country in the world cup qualifying match against Moldova, underlining the fact that the FA has not made his position in the national side “untenable.” The timing of the announcement is clearly a well thought-out and somewhat tactically decision in a bid to place extreme pressure on the FA disciplinary panel whom have a conviction rate last year of 99.5%.

The consequences of such a decision will be a lengthy ban for a player whose career is beginning to dwindle. After already witnessing the humiliation of being stripped of his captaincy back in February, the player has decided to remove himself from international selection before being dropped by manager Roy Hodgson. He has effectively, spat the dummy.

Terry said: “It breaks my heart to make this decision.” Yet, when you consider that both Wayne Bridge and Rio Ferdinand were effectively forced to remove themselves from the international scene due to John Terry’s inclusion in the England squad then there is little sympathy.

Terry feels aggrieved that the FA are not following the criminal court verdict of “not guilty” when his case was heard in July. In the FA’s own rule book it does state that court verdicts will indeed be followed so maybe John Terry, and his legal team, have a point.

Rule 6.8 states. "Where the subject matter of a complaint or matter before the Regulatory Commission has been the subject of previous civil or criminal proceedings, the result of such proceedings and the facts and matters upon which such result is based shall be presumed to be correct and the facts presumed to be true unless it is shown, by clear and convincing evidence, that this is not the case".

It does seem rather black and white. However, in a court of law the burden of proof required to make a conviction is “beyond a reasonable doubt” whereas in the FA hearing the burden of proof is lower, with a conviction occurring on the “balance of probability”.

Therefore, the facts could be exactly the same, with the same evidence presented, yet differing outcomes may be reached. And given that the chief magistrate Howard Riddle stated that it was "possible that what was said was not intended as an insult but rather as a challenge to what he believed had been said to him" it does suggest that the court does not deny that something unseemly was stated.

Therefore, one could suggest that the FA is indeed complying with Rule 6.8 as they are accepting that the facts, matters and result of the criminal case are all correct. However, when you lessen the burden of proof, a charge could be brought.

Also, the FA is an autonomous body, they are not bound by the law in sporting issues. For instance, the players who represent the English national side have to be English. That may seem obvious, but when you consider that the manager is not bound by the same constrictions, it does suggest that without the ruling that enforces clear discrimination, there would be nothing to prevent the English team being made up of foreigners.

As the autonomous body that it is, the FA has to conduct their own separate hearing in this case. Luis Suarez received an eight match ban for his alleged racial comments. If that case would have gone to court with the higher burden of proof, would Suarez have been convicted? Probably not. The FA cannot allow one player to get off for free, whilst another received such a lengthy ban. It would encourage players to take footballing issues to court, potentially allowing players to escape punishments for clear breaches of the game.

The FA needs to follow the precedent it set with the Evra/Suarez situation by banning the Chelsea skipper. Terry was fined two weeks’ wages back in 2001 for allegedly shouting abuse at U.S tourists the day after 9/11 and let’s face it, we have all seen the footage with Anton Ferdinand. On the balance of probabilities, we all know he is guilty.