I realise this is slightly old news now but what the hell – John Terry is set to face prosecution over racism claims during a match with QPR a few weeks back. A complaint from a member of the public was made to the police regarding the incident in which Terry squared up to Ferdinand before apparently insulting him verbally. The insult was quite clearly visible due to a video that appeared on YouTube where anyone could lip-read what was said, but it seems that this video has since disappeared, perhaps due to worries of influencing anyone involved with the case, which is set to conclude in January. Although innocent until proven guilty, it appears that a lot of damage has already been dealt to the reputation of the player who was already quite unpopular with just about every football fan, except of course with fans of Chelsea football club.

Racism has reared its ugly head in the Premier League twice in close succession, along with the Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez incident, having seemingly been stamped out of the game at least in the English league. However, when incidents like this do happen, I’m appalled by some of the responses of so called football pundits and other interested parties. The likes of Gustavo Poyet, of the same nationality of Suarez, said that the matter should be forgotten by a handshake, seemingly unfussed by racist abuse during matches. Kenny Dalglish and the football club have openly backed Suarez and refused to condemn his act with Evra, whilst thankfully Chelsea seem to have dealt with the Terry matter far better by not openly displaying their support (not in the way that Liverpool players wore tshirts backing Suarez after he was found guilty by the FA). Perhaps one of the worst responses to these acts of racism comes from the likes of the Daily Mail, printing articles like this: John Terry racism row Anton Ferdinand game.
It seems crazy that in this day and age, a publication with as large a reach as the Daily Mail can publicly deny the seriousness of these racist acts, the last sentence of their article stating:

So, Mr Evra and Mr Ferdinand, I know you feel insulted. But perhaps in this case you could just put up with it and get on with the game.

And this is whilst without getting into some of the things that Sepp Blatter has stated on the matter; Blatter, the apparent head of football. Its disappointing that at times when problems seem to be disappearing from the game, they actually aren’t at all, they just appear to be covered up.