What are the questions that remain unanswered nine years after Anton Ferdinand-John Terry race case?
The John Terry racism furore has been reignited by a BBC documentary in which Anton Ferdinand explores his ordeal following the ugly scenes during a Queens Park Rangers match with Chelsea in 2011.
For the first time, Ferdinand describes "how alone I was" within the game after the then Chelsea and England captain was captured on camera saying the words "f------ black c----" at him. Terry, now assistant head coach at Villa, was cleared in court of racist abuse, but subsequently banned for four matches and fined £220,000 following an FA disciplinary hearing. Nine years on, here are some of the unanswered questions prompted by Monday night's programme:
Why is there no full account of the FA's interview with Terry? And why did the investigator who questioned him use such an informal interview technique?
Just four minutes' worth of scrutiny over Terry's version of events has ever been made public when a small section of his interview was played to magistrates in July 2012.
Speaking for the first time on the BBC documentary, Anton Ferdinand said it was "brave of the FA" to pursue charges after a court had found Terry innocent of racist abuse in 2012. However, after listening to the partial recording of the FA official in charge of investigating the furore, Ferdinad said: "Just hearing that confirms to me that he got treated differently — sharing of the joke says it all for me."
Most galling for Ferdinand was the FA official's seemingly light-hearted reference about the standard of refereeing during a critical point while she interrogated him on his version of events. Terry had told the investigator: "I'm having an altercation still when I feel as though he said to me 'the black c---'. Now I don't at any point think he's calling me a black c---. I think he's accusing me of calling him a black c--- in the altercation we've had. And then obviously it's, you know in my statement, it's clear to say that I repeat what he said and then call him a "black c---' at the end of that."
At this point, the official, who also interviewed Ferdinand, responds: "Okay. Let's just go back a little bit. You come together, you go to the ground. You put your hands in the air, but the ref is not going to give you anything. We won't go into the referee's performance. If you watch the footage you bump into Anton, he shoves you back actually, and then... that's when you're having a bit of verbal there..."
Why no recording of Ferdinand's interview?
"All I know is that I didn't feel like the victim when I was in the room," says Ferdinand of his interview with the FA. He said he had attempted to obtain his copy of his interview, but the FA had told him "back then" they didn't keep copies of victim interviews.
Other witnesses inside the room in 2011 support his claim that he was not made to feel like a victim in the interview. "I knew they wanted to put this to bed straight away because it had caused them an embarrassment," remembers Neil Warnock, the then QPR manager, who attended the interview with Ferdinand. "All the questions — I thought some of the questions were irrelevant, out of order. I said 'is it Anton you are prosecuting here', or something like that." The FA were "naive", he added.
Where does this leave Terry's managerial ambitions?
The reopening of old wounds comes as the assistant head coach at Aston Villa continues to be linked with a host of managerial vacancies. Over the summer he was considered by Bristol City, and he is now one of the frontrunners to be the next manager of Derby County, once the club's takeover is complete. The most detailed account yet of one of the ugliest episodes over the last 10 years in the Premier League is terrible timing for an ambitious coach who has made no secret of his desire to become a "number one".
What does the programme mean for the FA?
This is the first time Ferdinand has explored how he felt abandoned by the game after the furore erupted. "I beat myself up about not speaking out", he says. With Ferdinand left feeling like he was a suspect in the case, it has prompted fresh concerns over the way football is governed.
Sanjay Bhandari, the Kick It Out chair, has said subsequently that "we need to ensure that, collectively, football learns the lessons from this". "A key focus should be that, across all areas of the game, such processes should be more clearly victim-led," he added. "A higher focus should be placed on ensuring that players and participants from the Premier League to grassroots receive appropriate welfare support from the moment a complaint is made."
The charity recognises it currently only has the capacity "to support five-six players or grass-roots participants per year", yet it receives over 500 complaints "and we know that this is the tip of the iceberg".
However, the FA and Kick It Out are at loggerheads after the governing body angrily rejected campaigner Troy Townsend's claim on the programme that the game pays "lip service" to race rows.Townsend added that football's rules were "hanging the victim out to dry until the end of an investigation" and that "the game has never protected the victim".
In a statement sent out afterwards, the governing body said it was "very concerned that substantial and serious inaccuracies" had been made.
"We can confirm that there are no rules or inferences in the relationship which prevent Kick It Out from contacting victims of discrimination," The FA said.
Why still no independent regulator of misconduct cases?
Campaigners told Telegraph Sport the documentary illustrated the need for the Government to consider an independent regulator to adjudicate football abuse cases.
One answer, they suggest, is to introduce a "GMC-style" regulator to oversee misconduct investigations. Ged Grebby, chief executive of Show Racism the Red Card, and Piara Powar, the executive director of European football's equality body Fare, are among those to suggest new independent bodies should be considered.
Ministers told MPs last week that a pre-election promise of fan-led review of football governance had now begun. Grebby says the review must consider football's safeguards against abuse. "These things have to be looked at," said Grebby. "I remember being called in by David Cameron to discuss this and we've had several Prime Ministers since and things don't seem to change," he said. "Our industry doesn't work like most. The water regulator shouldn't be controlled by the water companies, for instance."
Powar also said there is still "a question mark there" around the process that follows an allegation of abuse between players. "It's something that the the FA internally should intellectually, and in terms of good governance, be looking at consistently," he said. "Can we [the FA] effectively regulate the game at the highest level, knowing that it's free of interference or influence of professional football? The whole FA business model is around matches at Wembley and sponsorship of the England team."
