It's not about the trophy scalp, a man's future is at stake

By Martin Samuel - Sport for the Daily Mail Updated: 04:22 EDT, 31 October 2011

There will be a statement on Monday, according to 'sources'. 'Friends' claim Rio Ferdinand thinks there is a case to answer, while 'insiders' have been getting very busy, too.

Yet, seven days on and with as many as 19 fellow human beings in earshot, we are still guessing at what John Terry might have said to Anton Ferdinand and in what context.

Race row: Terry is under investigation following alleged comments made to Ferdinand

Beside mysterious 'pals' and anonymous 'camp' members, nobody has put a name, publicly, to a piece of concrete evidence. Even Anton  Ferdinand's club, Queens Park Rangers, have not made an official complaint.

The Football Association confirmed on Sunday that they were merely asked to conduct an investigation. This is on-going and no apologies should be due for its time span. There are important issues at stake here, but also a man's life. 

The sneering cynics who giggle that Terry has no reputation to lose, even if guilty, are as unthinking as the cavemen who consider racism an extension of football's notorious banter.

The reputation Terry has to lose is that of not being a racist and it is quite an important one. Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, repeatedly denies that his organisation are racist, too.

Now, if the head of the BNP, the leading far right political group in Great Britain, wants to be distanced from the racist tag, you get some idea of the stigma attached.

If guilty, Terry would not just expect to lose the captaincy of his club and country, he would remain tainted as a private individual.

Back to business: Terry and Ferdinand were both in action this weekend

There has been no successful rehabilitation of Ron Atkinson, or Michael Richards, who played the character Kramer in Seinfeld. Nobody forgets, not really.

The moment he retired from professional football, Terry's life as a public figure of any distinction would be as good as over. So the FA are not dragging their feet over Terry's investigation, or that of Luis Suarez of Liverpool, similarly accused by Manchester United defender Patrice Evra. They are merely making sure they do not hang a man on half a story, they are sure of guilt or they bring no case, and here lies the problem.

For Terry admits offensive words were uttered. His mitigation, however, is that they were part of a much longer sentence – 'Anton, do you think I called you a black ****?' - and in a comparatively innocent context. He says he asked Ferdinand if he thought he had been racially abused; he did not engage in racist abuse. It was, he adds, a misunderstanding.

Ferdinand, meanwhile, disputes this explanation, saying he offered no such accusation to which Terry could respond. This could be true. And that would be the misunderstanding part.

Terry could have, quite simply, got the wrong end of the stick. He could have mistakenly thought he was suspected of racism and responded robustly.

There is no evidence for this, beyond the defensive protests of an accused man; but by any reasonable reckoning it is a possibility.

These are therefore extraordinarily complex circumstances for the FA to consider, given that the main plank of known evidence remains an inconclusive video grab from a television broadcast, in which a significant part of Terry's outburst is obscured.

In the thick of it: The Chelsea skipper could face action from the FA

If no first-hand witnesses emerge with incriminating accounts, imagine this considered in a court of law. Imagine an expert in cross examination painting a scene of noise and confusion during a bad-tempered football match, the distracting intensity of the emotions, the cacophony from the stands.

'Now, Mr Ferdinand, with all that was unfolding around you, is it not possible that, in the heat of the moment, this might have been no more than an unfortunate misunderstanding on the part of Mr Terry.'

'It's all on YouTube. Everyone can see what he said. What do you think he said?' (This is a direct quote from  Ferdinand, as recorded in a Sunday newspaper yesterday).

'Mr Terry does not deny using those words, Mr Ferdinand. I am asking whether there is the possibility it could have been a result of a misunderstanding?'

We can all see where this is heading. Given the lack of detailed evidence and the level of aural confusion in which football matches are played there would, more than likely, have to be at least some small concession that the precise context in which Terry made his remark is unclear. At which point, the prosecution case evaporates.

Making a case: Man United defender Evra has accused Suarez of racism

Lives cannot be ruined on the hunch a racist remark was made - unless a witness comes forward to denounce Terry personally, of course. That is the game changer.

For what makes little sense in all of this is that Terry shouted to a player who was standing half a football pitch away, and nobody between those points can be found to corroborate the content of his exclamation.

The incident happened in approximately the 85th minute at Loftus Road, at a point when there were 20 players on the field, two from Chelsea - Jose Bosingwa and Didier Drogba - having been sent off.

Terry was retreating to Chelsea's back four line, Ferdinand in the back four of QPR leaving all, with the possible exception of Rangers goalkeeper Paddy Kenny, between them or potentially within earshot.

Bad day at the office: Terry's Chelsea conceded five goals at home to Arsenal

That means, if Terry did racially abuse Ferdinand, he was equally happy for this outrage to be heard by Chelsea team-mates Florent Malouda, John Mikel Obi and Nicolas Anelka and his Chelsea and England team-mate Ashley Cole, plus, on the QPR side, his England colleague Shaun Wright-Phillips and central defender Fitz Hall. And that is just the black players who would have been directly slurred.

It is patronising in the extreme to assume only blacks are offended by racism. All decent white people are, too. So there were, in total, 19 professional peers whom the England captain would be prepared to offend brazenly were he to choose to insult Ferdinand noisily at a distance of 50 yards.

Terry would need to be incredibly stupid or possess unshakeable self-confidence.

There are, of course, those who think he fits exactly that profile, and many have had their say in recent days. Yet, there is at least one element of this case that  continues to confound expectation and established trends.

Modern racism is artful and surreptitious. It is the whisper, the hiss, the little aside. It does not stand on street corners with loud hailers, assaulting random eardrums. It bides its time, waits for the right moment.

Evra says he was racially abused 10 times by Suarez during Manchester United's match with Liverpool, but nothing  conclusive is believed to have surfaced on television footage.

Under-fire: Liverpool striker Suarez

Without presuming Suarez's guilt in any way, that makes sense. Those players who are getting away with racial provocation - and they surely exist, even if Suarez and Terry are not among them - will be doing so in a way that is sly and subtle, so when the explosion comes it appears unprovoked.

Strangely, if Ferdinand said Terry abused him 10 times in a way that was utterly undetectable, it would make more logical sense than the thought that he shouted a single insult from the other side of a football pitch for all to hear.

Maybe, if there is a detailed statement from Ferdinand today, it will tie up some of the loose ends and take us beyond the realm of amateur lip readers - or professional ones, considering what happened after the 2006 World Cup final.

That was the last trial by viseme - the pairing of mouth and facial movements to phonetic sounds - although a real trial by jury soon followed in the libel courts.

When Zinedine Zidane of France butted Italy's Marco Materazzi, verbal provocation was rightly presumed and the speech-reading fraternity got to work.

In the days after it was variously reported that Materazzi had insulted Zidane's mother, sister, wife and family plus the late scout Jean Varraud of AC Cannes and the Muslim religion, while commenting on the topical issues of the day, including terrorism, prostitution, incest and sexual preference.

A number of newspapers found to their cost in court that this was not the case.

In his autobiography, Materazzi wrote that he pulled Zidane's jersey and was told: 'If you would like my shirt, I will give it to you after the game.' Materazzi says he replied: 'I would rather have your whore of a sister.' And bang.

The wild speculation that followed, and the fevered contribution of speech readers who fed the beast, only led to a series of successful libel actions. The FA cannot be caught out in the same way.

Head boy: Materazzi goes down under the challenge from Zidane

Then there is potentially the most debatable issue of all: considering that sledging is brutally commonplace in sport, where is the line to be drawn?

It was claimed last week that, after a confrontation in the Rangers penalty area, Terry swore at Ferdinand (supposedly using the C word) and Ferdinand responded by redefining its meaning, calling on a painful incident from Terry's past ('No, mate, a C is someone who sleeps with his team-mate's girlfriend').

Is it then possible that Terry might have upped the ante once more (so is it all right to call you a black C then)? And, if he did, how do we police such an abysmal exchange? Racism is out, obviously. No excuse, we know that. Yet what is fair game? Paedophilia? Sexuality? Your mother, wife, sister, father, team-mate's ex-girlfriends?

The late scout Jean Varraud of AC Cannes? Wouldn't it be better if everybody, black and white, just grew up and stopped confusing turgid abuse with wit?

'Sledging isn't as clever as people think,' Alastair Cook, England's opening batsman, said this year.

'Most of it is just high testosterone, rude and crude. If you got two guys together with enough intelligence you might get these famous exchanges that you read about, but most of the time it's just "f*** off, you're s***". Maybe years ago guys went out there with funny lines but in my experience it is just aggression.'

To behave as if this intellectual wasteland has its own rules, etiquette, a certain moral code is at best optimistic and, at worst, downright foolish; particularly when English football is a cultural melting pot of races and cultures, each with its own lines in the sand.

It was suggested in one newspaper last week that the conflict between Evra and Suarez may centre on the nuances of Spanish, in particular the frequent use of the word negro in many and varied connotations. So good luck with that, FA amigos.

The need to banish racism from football is a point so obvious it is barely worth recording.

We cannot go back to the depressing age when bananas were hurled from the  terraces, we are told, as if there is an enormous active lobby with a crate of freshly ripened Fyffes dying to have a go, rather than a  dwindling clan, largely ostracised.

Arguably, no profession in Britain is more visibly engaged in anti-racism initiatives than football.

It reminds me of a story in the satirical newspaper The Onion in 1998. Above a photograph of Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Taylor on stage at another HIV charity fundraiser was the headline 'Celebrities - are they aware enough of AIDS?'   

So we understand. It is vitally important that the FA, in particular, take allegations of racist behaviour seriously. Yet it is equally essential to have irrefutable evidence rather than just a trophy scalp to wave to show concern.

Many have talked of the damage that would be done were black players to feel discouraged from identifying instances of abuse, but forensic examinations of the claims are also unavoidable with the stakes so high.

Certainly, it did not sit well last week that, after days of speculation, conjecture and  opinion, Ferdinand's first public comments on the subject - as  anodyne as they may have been - came at the launch of a computer game, Battlefield 3.

No doubt the product's manufacturers and newspaper picture editors were delighted with the photographs of the player in a T-shirt bearing the game's logo, with its helpful pun, but this is supposed to be a serious issue, not a promotional vehicle.

'I didn't know racism still existed in football until last weekend,' said Ferdinand. Yet he is believed to have told the FA investigation team he was unaware of any racial abuse during the game. And back to square one we go.

A half-obscured YouTube video and a collection of silent witnesses. What can the FA do if it really isn't a case of black and white?

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT...

Mancini wins this one

It was claimed that the reduction of Carlos Tevez's fine at Manchester City was a victory for player power. Hardly. The only way the club loses is if it surrenders the support of its fans and neutrals.

Backing for manager Roberto Mancini remains widespread, however, and it was the Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor who attracted most criticism, for his condemnation of City's punishment.

The same will be true if Mancini is forced to play Tevez to satisfy FIFA regulations. We will know it is under sufferance - Tevez can terminate his contract if he is used in fewer than 10 per cent of City's matches - and not a sign of capitulation.

Hardly an edifying experience for the player, either, to be brought on for a brief, functional cameo, while suffering the opprobrium of fans who once adored him.

Taking away Jordan's joy was soulless

Jordan Ibe, 15, scored on his league debut for Wycombe Wanderers against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday and ran towards the touchline to celebrate with his mother and father sitting in the stands.

He was then booked by referee Chris Sarginson. Wycombe captain Gareth Ainsworth was also shown a yellow card for criticising the decision.

Ibe is 15. Sometimes, don't you feel it is the rules that actually bring the game into disrepute? And unbending, soulless officials.