John Terry’s Chelsea and England team-mate Ashley Cole told a court Wednesday that the racial slur allegations against his club captain should never have gone to trial.
Terry is accused of branding Queens Park Rangers player Anton Ferdinand a during a match between Chelsea and QPR on October 23 last year. Terry, standing trial at Westminster Magistrates Court in London, denies committing a racially aggravated public order offence. He has told the court he was sarcastically repeating words he thought Ferdinand had said to him.
Left-back Cole, taking the witness stand, said the allegations should not have been taken to court.
“I think we shouldn’t be sitting here,” said Cole, who is mixed-race.
While racism should never be tolerated, “If I repeated something that I thought you said, that’s totally different than if someone just says something,” he told the court.
He said Terry was an inspirational captain and one of the best because he remained cool, calm and collected when others might not.
Cole said Terry had never reacted to taunts on the pitch about an alleged affair with the mother of the former team-mate’s child. The defender said he was friends with both Anton Ferdinand and his elder brother Rio, the Manchester United and England centre-back. Cole said did not want to be involved in the aftermath of the racist abuse allegations.
“It was hard because I knew JT, Rio and Anton,” he said. Terry, giving evidence on the third day of his trial, said he wanted to speak to the police and to the Football Association, the sport’s governing body in England, to address the allegations.
“I was keen to go forward with my police statement, my FA statement. If I had anything to hide I wouldn’t have done that,” he said.
“I knew there was nothing out there that would show that I had done anything wrong.” The former England captain said he made a statement before seeing any footage of the incident.
“If there was ever any doubt in my mind, I could have held back, soaked it up and thought ‘Let’s wait until tomorrow, let’s see what kind of footage is out there’.”
The 31-year-old said he tried to call Rio Ferdinand, whom he partnered in England’s central defence.
Prosecutor Duncan Penny said to Terry: “You might have got in touch with Mr Ferdinand and said ‘Help me out here — this is going completely nuts’.”
Terry replied: “I did attempt to call Rio and he wouldn’t take my call, I didn’t have Anton’s number.”
He also said he spoke to an ex-footballer who helped both players with property investments.
Penny asked “what good” it was going to do Anton Ferdinand to make allegations against Terry if they were untrue.
Terry said: “I can’t answer any questions for Anton.”
The Blues skipper was asked if, with hindsight, he would have dealt with the allegation differently.
“If it happened again maybe I’d be a bit more immune to it, but it was the first time it happened and that’s why I reacted the way I did, and I can’t take it away,” he said.
The England defender also denied that he had made a remark about having sex with Ferdinand’s girlfriend, in response to taunts about his alleged affair. If found guilty, Terry could be fined up to £2,500 ($3,850, 3,150 euros). The trial is expected to take five days.
