Wenger speaks up for under-fire Terry

CHELSEA v ARSENALVenue: Stamford Bridge Kick-off: Today, 12.45pm On TV: Sky Sports 2

JOHN TERRY has found an unlikely ally in Arsene Wenger as he battles to clear his name in the wake of the race-row confrontation with Anton Ferdinand.

Terry was caught on video appearing to shout a racial insult at Ferdinand during Chelsea’s defeat at Queens Park Rangers last Sunday, which he has claimed was prompted by a misunderstanding. The QPR defender does not see it that way and when he was visited by investigators from the Football Association in England at his club’s training ground yesterday, he maintained he wanted answers and a resolution to the affair. QPR have already made a complaint to the FA.

Wenger, whose Arsenal side face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge today, said he would want anybody found guilty of racial abuse to be punished, and that would include Terry, who stands to lose the England captaincy if the FA were to find against him.

But he offered mitigation when he urged people to see the broader picture, which was that the pitch is a highly charged environment in which grievous insults have long been commonplace. The heat of the moment had to be considered.

“There’s a real debate about how much credit can you give to something said on the pitch in a passionate situation?” Wenger said. “How deep do you read? If you have played football, you have said something to your friends sometimes, ‘You are an idiot’ but you do not really think he’s an idiot. In a passionate situation inside the game, [it] doesn’t mean you can say anything but ... What I mean is you are not always politically correct on the football pitch.

“I don’t know what he [Terry] said and what’s happening. I just feel sometimes that what’s happening on the pitch is not always politically correct. It doesn’t excuse it. But the debate is . . . do you want every player to be followed by a camera? And analysed, completely, what he said after the game?”

Wenger broadened the discussion to include all forms of vicious abuse, from which he himself has suffered. “I’ve worked for 15 years in England and I have been abused how many times? And that doesn’t shock anybody.

“I would like to see people sitting on the seat [in the dugout] for one day and hear what people chant. You know it’s completely wrong. It’s the same as racism. For me, it’s racism anyway.”

Neil Warnock, the QPR manager, agreed racism was not the only issue in terms of abuse. “The hatred that comes to managers now, around dugouts and getting out of buses . . . if you look in the eyes of fans, there is so much hatred about,” he said.

“I was quite worried getting my crisps, bread and skimmed milk after the game last Sunday in the garage. I thought one guy was having a joke but he wasn’t. We had to move quickly. He was a Chelsea fan.”

Ferdinand spent two hours with the FA investigators and both he and they will submit formal reports next week. The situation is delicate, to say the least, and the onus would appear to be on the FA.

Warnock said he had no thought of omitting Ferdinand from his squad that plays at Tottenham Hotspur tomorrow and Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas was equally categoric about Terry’s selection against Arsenal.

“There is no separation,” Villas-Boas said, when asked whether the issue had created rifts in the dressingroom. “All of the players have been quiet about it because we know what happened. Nothing happened, so there is nothing to discuss about it.”

“I see no reason why not,” Villas-Boas said, “Not in the sense of his state of mind – never. I don’t think, for us, it’s been a distraction.”

Asked if it had become a wider issue than Terry’s word against Ferdinand’s, he added: “I don’t know what it’s become. For me, it’s the end of the matter and it’s under FA investigation and hopefully we can put an end to it.”

Guardian Service