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Can John Terry survive with England?
So England football captain John Terry has got himself into trouble and a real debate rages around whether he should stay to lead the side for the World Cup in South Africa after being caught in a sexual relationship with the ex-partner of England team mate Wayne Bridge.
Apparently it is just one of several extra-marital affairs that Terry has got involved in and his wife, and mother of his twin daughters, is threatening divorce after being humiliated over a number of years by his infidelity.
The national press are howling for his blood but I can’t help wondering why now because although he is a very fine defender on the pitch he has hardly covered himself in glory over past years off the park, with his money-raising exploits and involvement in other scrapes.
Non-reality bubble
A friend of mine sums up the situation best when he says that footballers like Terry live in their own bubble, with no awareness of reality since no-one ever says ‘no’ to them. Imagine having £170,000 a week to live off and still trying to hawk himself around, through agents, for more cash!
His biggest mistake was believing that he could use his considerable wealth (said to be around £25 million!) to stifle any reaction to his behaviour. Now the cat is well and truly out of the bag and we are told that polls of players and fans say that he should be punished by losing the captaincy and even being kicked out of the squad.
Strange dividing line
Yet is his infidelity worse than some of the exploits of other top players who think they can treat women like cattle? Not really, but this time he has allegedly crossed the dividing line because it is a football mate’s ‘woman’ and not an ordinary Joe in the street who would happen to be the outraged husband or father – so you have dopes like Tevez and others wearing their pathetic tee-shirts with ‘Team Bridge’ on them because a fellow footballer and current team mate has been slighted!
There is also apparent outrage at FA headquarters, yet this is the group who did nowt when England manager Sven Goran Erikson and top admin man Mark Pallios were both bedding the same secretary at HQ!
No Bridges built here
The problem for current boss Fabio Capello is whether he can afford to have this as an irritant throughout the time to the finals, because the press will keep it going. Can he get Bridge to travel on the same plane as Terry, or change in the same dressing room? Are other players, with seemingly no recall of their own indiscretions, be so incensed that it will affect their play at the World Cup?
It all adds up to another unsavoury moment in the slime-pit that top football has become and I think Terry’s biggest hope is that some other footballing indiscretion comes to light which is bad enough for the news hawks to gather elsewhere. My own view is that he stands as an example to the millions of young supporters who help pay his wages and so should be booted out of the captaincy. But he’s no worse that a number of others who have fame and fortune but still believe that everyone should bow to their whims – no matter how distasteful or perverted they are!
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