RUFFHAUS8 wrote:Criminal/civil, whatever. Semantics used to distract the discussion. Your typical debate style at work again.
Given that you started your post with the sentence:
"Once again reading comprehehsion seems to elude some people.", I'd have thought you'd appreciate that I put the effort in to understand what you'd written. Silly me.
RUFFHAUS8 wrote:There's a court trial governing verbal conduct between players in an athletic match. That in and of itself is over the top absurd, but even that was not the point. The point is that Terry was accused of saying something racially inflammatory to Ferdinand. The basis of this entire spat is that Terry allegedly called Ferdinand a "black c*unt". That's a crime? That's a waste of time.
Firstly, while it was on the pitch, it was also televised live and broadcast publicly.
And yes, under public order laws, calling someone a "black c***" can indeed be a crime.
RUFFHAUS8 wrote:The FA in their hypocritical wisdom has decided that a man accused of racism for a kneejerk reaction in an athletic match in response to a spur of the moment violent conduct cannot be captain of the England team, but he can still play football for them. That was the point, and Capello was correct to call them out on it. The point was the FA is not letting Capello manage the England team. That was the point, but you are incapable of staying on point.
As Sass has pointed out, there was a blanket rule. It was changed - while Mr Capello was around, so he can't pretend it was news - to give the manager/coach the choice of picking someone.
RUFFHAUS8 wrote:I'm not justifying racial abuse. Period. Nice try @#$! but this isn’t what I said no matter how many times you try to paint it that way. The point is that Ferdinand escaped punishment by the FA and the police for an extremely malicious and clearly intentional elbow to Terry's head. If there are laws, rules, punishments for Terry's retaliation, fine. I'm not defending John Terry. I'm saying that there is clear video evidence of Ferdinand striking terry before the alleged racial abuse. While you can be dismissive of it for whatever reason you hold, the FA is further inept and corrupt for ignoring the elbow. There's no excuse for willful malicious elbows like that in the game. Period. And that was my point, and my point not made to discredit Ferdinand's accusation, but to discredit the FA. But of course that doesn't suit your race card agenda.
I never said you were. I will refrain from calling you names, if that's all the same to you. What I said was that a previous foul does not excuse racist abuse (which, unfortunately, does not have the same meaning as 'justify'. You accuse me of bringing irrelevant stuff in, but have to make accusations against Anton Ferdinand and complain about how much of a rotter he is, as if that's relevant to whether Terry's charge should affect his captaincy or call-up.
I wish I'd called you on that before, because you seem to be labouring under a misapprehension:
Ferdinand did not initiate the investigation of the police and CPS. It was that the words were clearly caught on television and there for all to see.
By the way, I've seen the elbows. They look worse in slomo (as do all contacts), but they are hardly as you describe. That's my
opinion, of course. But the worst that should have been a result would be a yellow card (for the second one), and that would be some stretch, to be honest. It was nothing like the two offences that saw Chelsea players sent off in the same game. And boy, was that a fractious game! Chelsea down to 9 men, trailing to a penalty that they stupidly gave away, especially in a local derby.
Maybe that could be used as some mitigation for the angry play and the language being used by players. However, neither of us are in the Crown Prosecution Service, so neither can say why they think they have a strong enough case to lay charges.
Those charges in place, the issue is as you say, should a man who is facing trial for a public order offence still be the captain of the England football team - representing our nation, being the prime player who is supposed to set an example and to (as the laws of the game say) embody the spirit of fair play, and - of course, with the nature of the offence he's alleged to have committed, can he really have the confidence of his own squad - unless we decide it's better to exclude any black players who don't take his side - or the respect of his opponents?
RUFFHAUS8 wrote:That's not the point either. The point is that they did intervene where I believe (that's an opinion in case it's unclear to you) they should not have, and further that this is part of the reason that the England manage position is an impossible job in which no one will ever succeed in until the FA ceases their power crazed micromanaging. It was a simple observation, and one based in fact, that you chose to attack with semantic and misdirection, and flat out dishonesty. As usual.
Your personal problems with me aside, the thing is that you are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but when it comes up against the facts (as outlined by Sass), and when you compare to non-sporting company policies, you'd find that usually such rules are enforced without any bending precisely because if you start to bend them for some people, you end up with more problems.
I've no problem with you calling the FA spineless. But you are off base to try and link in a load of other stuff.
RUFFHAUS8 wrote:I'm saying that this should be the manager's decision, because that is exactly what he's been hired to do, manage the team. So once again, good for Capello. He did the right thing here.
Well, even managers have to accept the rules of the organisation they work for. But (and I guess here you'll accuse me of that heinous crime of 'semantics' again), he's not the 'Manager', he's the 'Head Coach'. Which implies something a bit different in terms of role and responsibilities anyway.
I will say one thing though - Capello was right. Right to resign, for the way he approached the issue and if he really can't work within the framework he agreed to in 2008 and again in 2010.
Am I 'cynical' for hoping for failure in the Euro's? Maybe so. Point is that we are rubbish and overrated. 1998 to 2006 we had a decent run of sides. But we have become stuck in a rut of late. While England qualified with relative ease for S Africa, the team struggled in what should have been an easy group to get out of. The games against Algeria and Slovenia were turgid, and that against Germany proved that we were way out of our depth. My opinion is that we will flubber anyway, but what I fear is a Mike Bassett-style flukey run that has Harry hailed as a hero, giving him a chance to really destroy the team over the next few years.
Pearce would perhaps make a good replacement, but not just yet. He's had good performances from the youth sides he's been coaching and he used the Holland game for the important task of exposing younger players to the international game.