In the end, the threat of embarrassment – real, searing embarrassment – meant over hurting the emotions of 1 man. the risk was too nice for the football Association which is why it has created the proper call as a result of the alternative, quite merely, was not value pondering.
It takes a giant leap, perhaps, but just imagine if England, captained by John Terry, had got their act in gear sooner than the ecu Championship and really won the damn thing. Terry's trial for allegedly racially abusing Anton Ferdinand is eight days once the ultimate, and what then? If he is convicted, the FA would not be able to airbrush him from the photographs.
It takes a giant leap, perhaps, but just imagine if England, captained by John Terry, had got their act in gear sooner than the ecu Championship and really won the damn thing. Terry's trial for allegedly racially abusing Anton Ferdinand is eight days once the ultimate, and what then? If he is convicted, the FA would not be able to airbrush him from the photographs.
Another trophy presentation could not be arranged. The television footage could not be doctored purely so we could have something to remember that doesn't make us glow and cringe at the same time. Terry would already have recreated the nearest thing any Englishman has had to a 1966 moment. Yes, he may be found not guilty. But the FA could not take the chance.
This is not the only reason why it has removed Terry's captaincy, but it is enough in itself. At Manchester City last season they won their first trophy for 35 years but a lot of supporters now look at the photographs of the trophy presentation with a hollow form of joy. The problem, you see, is that it is Carlos Tevez holding it aloft and, as far as they are concerned at City, Graeme Souness called it just right when he talked of the Argentinian epitomising everything that was wrong about modern-day football. Yet Tevez was never convicted of calling an opposition player a "black cunt".
Terry hasn't been either. He denies the allegations, says he feels "disgusted" and, in which case, he was probably entitled to want to keep that little piece of elasticated cloth around his left biceps. But the FA had too much to lose. The final of Euro 2008 was watched on television by around 330 million people in 231 different countries. Each game had an average audience of 155 million. This year's event will be even bigger. The FA's responsibility is for the image of the English game, not the feelings of a man who should probably never have been given a second bite at the captaincy anyway.
By overruling Fabio Capello and affronting Terry, the FA is trying to spare us from Euro 2012 turning into an ordeal not of its own making. Every press conference in Poland and the Ukraine would have seen it crop up.
Every training session would have been scrutinised for signs of cliques and divisions. As the captain, Terry would have been obliged to speak before every match. Even if the English press pack had eventually left him alone, the foreign journalists would not have. Every time a black player walked through the mixed zone someone would have stuck out a microphone. The questions can be couched in many different ways but they would all boil down to one thing: pro-Terry or anti-Terry?
Some may think it is wrong to be bothered by these things, that the media has done enough to disrupt England and the FA should rise above it. But this is the way of modern-day football. It is there, it is not going to change and, as England should know from experience, it can be a monster in major tournaments. The controversy would have fastened on like a tick on the side of a dog, getting worse all the time.
That is not to say shifting Terry a couple of places down the lineup entirely removes the problem. On the assumption that he resists any temptation to tell the FA to sling it, his trial is still going to provide a permanent backdrop to whatever else happens in Capello's final few weeks as manager. Terry can actually regard himself as fortunate in one respect in that football seems to operate by different rules from just about every other profession. Any other employee of a large company would already have been suspended on full pay for an allegation of this seriousness, pending the outcome of the case. It is standard procedure outside of the football bubble and, if it were applied here, we wouldn't have the sideshow of Rio Ferdinand now contemplating what it is going to be like sharing the same oxygen with the man accused of abusing his younger brother. Note the message on the Manchester United defender's Twitter account after the trial date was set: "I feel insulted … woke up with a bad taste in my mouth … its a god damn joke!"
Rio Ferdinand is a popular player within the England dressing room and you wonder what will have to be done to make things bearable behind the scenes.
How does Ashley Cole deal with it? Will Wayne Rooney be caught in the middle? What if Danny Welbeck, a young, black, Manchester United footballer who looks up to Ferdinand as one of his heroes, gets called up? Jason Roberts has predicted it would be "toxic" and, even if that is not quite the correct word, it is threatening to be awkward, tense and potentially volatile. Capello needs togetherness. If he does not think Ferdinand and Terry can work together, he has a difficult decision to make. One will have to be sacrificed.
Terry's sympathisers argue that the decision warps the boundaries of innocent until proven guilty, and this was a common worry among David Bernstein's colleagues when he started the process of canvassing their views. Except removing the captaincy is not prejudicial if it is simply an interim approach. It is not presuming guilt or innocence, merely accepting that the FA has a lot of things to consider and, all in all, it needs to suspend judgment. Yes, it is going to create a lot of headlines and opinion but it is not the FA's job to worry whether that affects the thinking of a district judge at Westminster magistrates court in five months' time.
Newspapers and broadcasters employ lawyers to look after that. The FA's duty should be purely about what is right and wrong in football terms.
What happens if any of England's black players are racially abused by the crowds in Poland or Ukraine? Let's face it, this scenario is more likely than England winning the competition. We know the story by now: the FA complains to Uefa, puts out a statement then gets very indignant, with good reason, that not enough is being done about it. The problem is, it is difficult to take the moral high ground when 9 July is circled into the FA's diary in black marker pen. Who, in ordinary circumstances, would be wheeled out after Capello to speak on behalf of the players and condemn it? That's right, the England captain.
Perhaps Terry regrets that letter from Chelsea's chief executive, Ron Gourlay, asking the judge to delay the trial until out of season.
Defendants are not usually treated so obligingly. If they were, Tottenham Hotspur and Harry Redknapp could have asked for his court case to be put off to this summer, too.
Instead we have an alleged public order offence from autumn 2011 going to court in summer 2012 because the judge was told it would be difficult for Terry and anybody else who might be needed from Chelsea to take time off during the season. Terry's commitments with the England team were also taken into account. It is bizarre. Even if Chelsea reach the Champions League final there are two weeks in March, two in April and three in May when there are no Tuesday-to-Friday fixtures.
"The FA board expected the trial to be concluded prior to the European Championship," the statement from FA headquarters read. So did Capello, the Ferdinands and everyone at QPR. As Mark Hughes says: "I think everybody believes it has been dragging on forever. From my point of view, and certainly Anton's, [we] would have preferred it to be done and dusted by now. I think everybody would."
There is nothing anyone can do about that now and Capello, overruled and undermined, is back to picking a new captain and wondering why it is that English football has this habit of taking a 12-bore to its own foot. One day, he will write a book about all this madness. Terry – 72 caps, six goals, two captaincies and more controversy than he will wish to remember – will feature in every chapter.
