LONDON: John Terry’s defence for his racial slur towards Anton Ferdinand was “improbable, implausible and contrived” the independent Football Association commission that banned him for four matches, said yesterday.
The 31-year-old Chelsea captain was last week found guilty of racially insulting the Queens Park Rangers defender during a Premier League match at Loftus Road in October 2011.
The FA’s findings, published in a 63-page document yesterday, said there was no evidence that Terry was a racist.
However, they dismissed his account of the event and cast doubt on the evidence given by his Chelsea team-mate Ashley Cole, acting in Terry’s defence.
Cole, who has played 98 times for England, then used his verified Twitter account - @TheRealAC3 - to insult the FA, tweeting: “Hahahahaa, well done FA. I lied, did I,” before ending his message with an abusive expletive.
The comment was later deleted and Cole apologised unreservedly in a statement through his solicitor, the BBC reported.
Atkins said Chelsea would not comment on the case while Terry still has the opportunity to appeal the decision to ban him for four games and fine him 220,000 pounds ($355,600).
“John Terry has the right of appeal and in view of this it would be inappropriate for us to comment further,” he told reporters at the club’s training ground.
Atkins stepped in several times before Di Matteo could answer questions, but the Chelsea manager repeated his assertion that he had no problems with Terry remaining as captain.
“From my judgement of this man, I have known him for many many years since we played together and I have never had any doubt that his comments would be of any kind of discrimination against any other ethnic party.”
He added: “At the moment he is our captain and he is available to play and that’s the situation.”
Terry was found not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence in a criminal prosecution in July, however, the FA used different standards of proof.
REUTERS
