Chelsea FC captain John Terry has been slammed with a four-match ban by the English Football Association (FA) after the FA found him guilty of racially abusing Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand on Thursday. It would be recalled that the incident took place during Chelsea’s match away to QPR at Loftus Road on October 23 last year, and John Terry got a “not guilty” verdict from an English court in July.
Statement by the FA said an independent regulatory commission had issued a suspension for a period of four matches and a fine of $356,722 pending appeal. Meanwhile, Terry has 14 days from receiving the written reasons for the decision to lodge an appeal against it.
However, the ban will not come into force until the appeals procedure is complete; this means that the central defender will be available for Chelsea’s Premier League match away to London rivals Arsenal on Saturday.
On his own part, the footballer, who just recently announced his retirement from international football, has through his representatives expressed his disappointment over the decision. In their own statement “Mr Terry is disappointed that the FA Regulatory Commission has reached a different conclusion to the clear not guilty verdict of a court of law… He has asked for the detailed written reasons of the decision and will consider them carefully before deciding whether to lodge an appeal.”
Source: aljazeera
