Di Matteo refuses to confirm Terry's role
Reuters - Friday 19 October 2012, 14:01
Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo refused to confirm whether John Terry
would remain as club captain, with his four-match domestic ban for
racially abusing Anton Ferdinand due to start with Saturday's game
against Tottenham Hotspur.
Terry
was banned for four matches and fined 220,000 pounds this
month after an independent Football Association (FA) commission found
him guilty of abusing Ferdinand last year.
He
had until Thursday to appeal but instead issued an apology for the
insult saying he was accepting the ban, which applies to domestic games
only.
Chelsea said on
Thursday that they had taken disciplinary action against the defender
but Di Matteo would not elaborate on Friday at a tense news conference
at the club's training ground at Cobham, south of London.
"We
do not discuss publicly the disciplinary matters we take against our
players. They remain confidential. You will have to wait and see," Di
Matteo told reporters when asked if Terry would remain as captain.
"They are internal matters, the action we take against our players, and we are not going to discuss it."
Although
he is banned from domestic matches, Terry can play in the Champions
League. Asked if he would captain the side against Shakhtar Donetsk in
Ukraine next week, Di Matteo said: "You will have to wait until
Tuesday."
GENERAL APOLOGY
Although Terry did not apologise directly to Ferdinand in his statement on Thursday, Di Matteo said the club backed his apology.
"I think he has apologised generally to everyone including the Ferdinand family," said Di Matteo.
"I
don't think it was a matter of not apologising directly but it's an
apology for the language he used in the game. He realises it was
inappropriate to do so and he has been banned and fined by the FA for
that."
This weekend marks
the first anniversary of the QPR-Chelsea match when the incident
occurred and is also the designated anti-racism weekend promoted by the
Kick It Out campaign with players due to wear their slogan on their
warm-up tops before matches.
However,
several black players including Reading's Jason Roberts have said they
will not wear the shirts in protest at what they regard as the FA's
leniency.
A number of
players are upset with the FA for not taking a stronger stance against
the racism issues thrown up by the Terry case which were also the
subject of a magistrates' court case in July when he was found not
guilty of a racially motivated public order charge.
Manchester
United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said at his news briefing on Friday: "I
think everyone should be united, I don't know what point [Jason
Roberts] is trying to make.
"He really should be supporting all the other players who are doing it."
After
missing Saturday's match at Spurs, Terry will also be banned from the
Premier League match against Manchester United (October 28), the League Cup
match against United three days later and the Premier League match at
Swansea on November 3.
He will be free to return for the home match with Liverpool on November 11.