Capello has made a mighty mistake sacking Terry - his decision will come back to haunt England

By Oliver Holt in Mirror Football Blog

Published 22:59 05/02/10

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Fabio Capello made his first real mistake as England coach yesterday. What a shame it was such a big one.

The sacking of John Terry as England captain risks plunging the squad into anarchy a few months away from the World Cup finals.

It proves nothing and solves nothing. Its only effect will be to make the players wonder whose side Capello is really on.

Capello made an illogical and arbitrary judgment yesterday, a judgment that belies his reputation as a clear thinker.

There was no suggestion that Terry would be banished from the squad altogether so let’s try and get it straight: Terry is not fit to be England captain but he is fit to represent his country.

He’s not fit to wear the armband but he is fit to wear the shirt. How exactly does that work? So much for the England coach’s reputation as the strongman of international football. What he did at Wembley yesterday was weak, weak, weak.

When he bowed to the baying of the mob by stripping Terry of the captaincy of his country, he set a dangerous precedent.

He sent out a message that the England skipper has to be beyond reproach in his private life as well as his professional life or else he gets fired.

Well done Fabio – you just flashed a green light at every gold digger and muck raker who wants the England captain as a trophy.

Every pimp and every hooker, every thief and low-life, have got dollar signs in front of their eyes now.

You beckoned them on and you told them the man who wears the armband is fair game.

You missed a chance to prove to your players that you wouldn’t bow to a media campaign.

And by doing that, for the first time since you took over, you gave the players a reason to doubt and distrust you.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about how Terry crossed a line when he had an affair with the ex-girlfriend of a fellow player.

Well, Capello crossed a line yesterday, too. He failed to support his captain when his captain needed him most.

He sided with the media clamour rather than his skipper. The other players are unlikely to forget that.

Given that Capello appears to have made up his mind about Terry before another attempt to discredit him was published yesterday morning, his downfall rests squarely on his alleged sexual indiscretions.

Let’s hope that Capello is clear with the other players and indeed his own backroom staff about just where the moral boundaries lie.

Do you have to sleep with a teammate’s ex-girlfriend to get the sack?  Will you get fired if it’s merely a married woman? What about if you’re single but you sleep around? If you’re a man who loves women, is that enough to get you in trouble?

Capello has made all these questions real and live now. He has legitimised them. And he has painted a target on his players’ backs in the process.

This is the manager, don’t forget, who was livid when pictures of him and his wife bathing in mud were published recently in a Sunday newspaper.

He was appalled at the invasion of his privacy and yet his response to the same thing happening to Terry was to sack him.

Next in the firing line as Terry’s replacement is Rio Ferdinand, apparently.

After what he did to the Chelsea captain yesterday, Capello better get down on his dodgy knees and pray that Ferdinand is spotless.

Because if someone places a call to Max Clifford and says she’s got a story to sell, then Capello will have to sack Ferdinand as well.

It will be the same for whoever comes next. And next after that. Stand by for an epidemic of kiss and tells, courtesy of Mr Capello.

Talk about handing Ferdinand a poisoned chalice. I feel sorry for the Manchester United defender already. Nobody should have to live their life under that kind of scrutiny.

People said Terry had devalued the England captaincy with his behaviour but now Capello has devalued it, too.

By refusing to stick up for the captain’s right to a private life, he has made it the hottest hot potato in football.

If you screw up, if you’re not blasphemy-free, the manager throws you to the wolves.

The sacking of Terry hasn’t even fixed the issue of the awkwardness that will exist between him and Wayne Bridge over Terry’s affair with Bridge’s ex-girlfriend.

That was what sparked this whole furore in the first place but yesterday’s developments didn’t change that dynamic.

The media frenzy around both players will still be there when they meet up for the next game against Egypt .

The shame is that Capello could have waited this one out. England haven’t got a game for a month. What was the rush? All the talk was of how the publicity surrounding Terry might become a distraction for the rest of the squad.

But if Terry was strong enough to deal with it – and he showed every sign that it hadn’t affected him – then Capello should have been strong enough to deal with it, too.

He went down the crowd-pleasing route yesterday. He listened to the moral majority when he should have stood firm and stuck up for his captain.

His failure to do so risks the implosion of all our World Cup ambitions.

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