John Terry is a racist. We hold this as fact, he racially abused Anton Ferdinand on Sunday, the Police are looking into this. Then again, should we be surprised, JT already racially insulted Ledley King during a Spurs game.
I am paraphrasing the comments going around the internet on this matter. People writing this should be very careful. God forbid that some facts get in the way of condemning a person by internet chatboard.
John Terry is no angel. We know this to be true and would never declare that he was by virtue of being Chelsea (and England) captain. Should the allegations be proved correct, many of us would have no problems in joining in throwing the decomposing vegetables at the guy, and I say that as a Chelsea supporter. However, that would require that the allegations be proved true.
Let`s try to separate fact from conjecture, rumour and prejudice. There was an altercation between JT and Anton Ferdinand during the game, apparently it also kicked off a bit in the (cheaply-lit) corridors of Loftus Road after the final whistle.
Internet mugs are posting videos, complete with speech bubbles putting words into JT`s mouth courtesy of amateur lip readers. These have said that JT called Anton Ferdinand a ‘black ****`. But did he? JT, who is vigorously arguing the case, is saying that what he actually did was to deny saying that, and that the full sentence was to ask Ferdinand: ‘Oi, Anton, do you think I called you a black ****?` The two are very different. One is a racist insult, another is a denial. In any case, during the YouTube video, Ashley Cole runs in front of the discussion so nobody can see what is said.
We should wait until the whole business is cleared up. Lest we jump to conclusions, let us point out that Ferdinand himself hasn`t made any complaint. Instead, the QPR player is, apparently, still ‘thinking about it`. Isn`t that shorthand for explaining why Anton Ferdinand hasn`t done this yet. It`s like a transfer rumour where a player ‘refuses to deny` something. He hasn`t complained, probably because he has no intention of doing so. You can read what you like into the silence, but the most likely interpretation is that there simply is no complaint.
Further, if you were Anton Ferdinand and you felt you’d been racially abused by someone, would you sit down and talk it over for 15 minutes post-match. And would you go out with this bloke that same evening for a mutual friend’s birthday party? Because that`s what happened after the match.
John Terry is being investigated. Yes, he`s being investigated by the police, who are looking into a complaint ? made by a member of the public. Legally, the police have to take each complaint seriously. It matters little that, logically, the only person whose complaint should be given any consideration is that of Anton Ferdinand; John Terry is being investigated by the police. In the absence of any complaint from Ferdinand, we look forward to this upstanding member of the public having his complaint filed vertically.
Yes, but we all know about JT. He has previous, he abused Ledley King. Besides, there was that business with him shagging his mate`s wife. Those are elements of his reputation that are difficult to shake off. Especially when what actually happened gets in the way of tarring a man`s reputation.
People are referring to the ‘Ledley King` incident. But what happened then? No complaint was ever made, no incident was investigated. In fact, nothing was ever proved. Despite all the bleating from Spurs fans, eager to tarnish JT, here`s what actually happened: at the time, a spokesperson from Tottenham Hotspur declared that the whole thing was not true, had there been any allegations, Spurs would be looking into them and it was because there was nothing to investigate there was no investigation. That is the smoking gun: the declaration by none other than Tottenham Hotspur that there was no racist insult.
Of course, there was all that unpleasantness involving Wayne Bridge. He shagged his team-mate`s wife, don`t you know? Except, whatever JT did, that was not it. At the time Wayne Bridge, who never even married the ‘French underwear model` at the centre of the storm, had separated from the woman. It was a crass thing for JT to do (or was alleged to have done) and he handled it catastrophically with an ill-advised super-injunction. But it is wrong, and retrograde, to charge the guy on the basis of some moronic bloke code. Whatever happened is actually between JT, the woman in question, and JT`s wife. Wayne Bridge`s opinion on the matter is irrelevant.
And so is the opinion of the ‘member of the public` who was so upset (probably after 90 minutes of hurling expletives) by something that JT is alleged to have said (and which, claims JT was taken out of context) that he has reported it to the police. Sorry internet warriors, it`s not your opinion that counts, it`s that of the police on the basis of the person who is alleged to have received this insult. In the meantime, let`s not drag into this stuff that is totally irrelevant ? or even, as in the Ledley King case, simply not true.
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