Wednesday, 1 February 2012

"Terry has never racially abused another player"

From The Evening Standard:

England football captain John Terry today denied racially abusing Queens Park Rangers player Anton Ferdinand as the case opened at Westminster magistrates' court. The multimillionaire Chelsea star, 31, is alleged to have called the defender a "f****** black c***" during a match.

It is understood that Terry, who has vowed to "fight tooth and nail" to clear his name, was instructed by his legal team not to appear in court today... Terry's lawyer, George Carter-Stephenson, said they would challenge the lip-reader's assertions with their own experts, and would call a number of "character witnesses" on Terry's behalf. He said the married father of two had "never racially abused another player".

Entering the plea, Mr Carter-Stephenson explained: "Mr Terry is a fine and upstanding Englishman and the captain of the national team. Who are you going to believe? Mr Terry, or some jumped-up n***** who only got off the boat two weeks ago and would be just as happy sitting in the ****** eating a ******?"

11 comments:

Jer said...

Beaten to the punch by anonymous :(

Do I get pedant points for claiming that black is a colour not a race?

Rob said...

They can call his father as a character witness...or maybe not.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Lighten up chaps, it was a spoof article.

Rob, nice one, I have amended.

Bayard said...

RA, so if he had called David Beckham a f******* white c***, would that be racist? If someone called me that, I'd be more upset that I was being called a f******* c***. And if he had called Wayne Rooney a f******* scouse c***, would that be racist, and if not why not? It's not as if our Wayne can do anything about being scouse, any more than Anton Ferdinand can do anything about being black.

Jer, black is a colour, but AF's skin colour is not black, it is brown.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg

AC1

dearieme said...

Anything is racist if anyone perceives it as racist - that's the doctrine of Macpherson, isn't it?

Bayard said...

D, I suspect that truth of the matter was that AF really objected to being called a f******* c***, but the papers wouldn't be interested in that. After all, he could hardly have made such a fuss if JT had just called him black, could he?

The Hickory Wind said...

Can you clarify for the benefit of an expat who sometimes has difficulty appreciating the levels of pettiness and weirdness that the old country is descing to: He is actually facing a criminal trial? For calling someone a rude name? Or is this just one of those hate campaigns that the press so love to orchestrate?

Mark Wadsworth said...

CI, it's a proper criminal trial, bizarrely enough.

Same as for those Pakistani bowlers who threw no-balls. By all means, ban them from Test cricket for life, but what on earth does this have to do with the ordinary legal system? Nothing. Why is the taxpayer paying to put them in jail? Buggered if I know.

Pogo said...

@MW - re the "no balls"...

They were jailed for conspiracy to commit fraud, if not actual direct fraud IIRC. They were manipulating a betting scam and thereby defrauding honest gamblers.

Mark Wadsworth said...

P, yes of course, but who really lost money here?

Not the everyday punter, because for every one who didn't win as a result of the cheating, there must have been one who did. The people who lost were the bookmakers who took the bets on a fraudulent outcome.

It strikes me that this is something bookmakers will have to live with, surely they have some sort of system for filtering out weird looking bets, or it's all built in to their margins?

So if the members of the gambling syndicate had been jailed, then fair play I suppose, but I'm not aware they were ever even named and shamed, so as usual we go after the little fish and spend oodles of taxpayers' finest punishing them.