John Terry

John Terry seems like a totally knob.  How many affairs has he had?  According to The Sun, loads.  Who knows whether the allegations in that link are all true or not, although Terry’s certainly not whiter than white: in 2005 he apologised publicly to his wife for his past behaviour, and promised to remain faithful to her in the future, before getting it on with  a “blonde teenager” in a car park a few weeks later.

Most recently, you can’t fail to have heard about it, there have been allegations of an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, a (French) underwear model.  (Funny how all his alleged flings have been models, “Page 3 babes”  etc, isn’t it?  No speech therapists among them, ha ha).  This woman was the partner of his team mate, Wayne Bridge, and he apparently got her pregnant and paid for her to have an abortion.  The betting seems to be that it’s all true this time.  The evidence:  a super-injunction initiated by Terry, and a kiss-and-tell by Perroncel worth £250,000.

As a result of the ‘scandal’, it seems that Terry, just like Tiger Woods, is going to lose lots of sponsorship deals:  Svenska Spel have said they won’t be employing him again, and Umbro and Samsung have distanced themselves from him.  Fair enough, I suppose – they’ve got images to maintain.  (Don’t you always think of clean cut family man when you picture a Samsung TV?  ;-)

But, it seems he may also lose his job as England captain.

So, why am I writing all this? 

I really couldn’t give a toss who John Terry shags.  However, I actually think that, as long as the quality of his play remains the same, what Terry has or hasn’t done in this case should have no bearing on whether Capello decides to sack him.

Yes, I know that playing alongside, or giving advice as captain to, Wayne Bridge may be difficult, but can you really imagine them not passing the ball to each other or tripping each other up in the World Cup Finals?  The England team want to win too much, and they would become the biggest hate figures since David Beckham in the 1998 World Cup if they messed up.  I’m sure they would play well together “for the sake of the nation”.

In every other walk of life, people don’t get demoted or sacked for what they do in their private life, so why should football be any different? 

All that said, I do find John Terry completely odious and unattractive (doesn’t he look much older than 29?).  And I think his wife must be extremely forgiving and/ or enjoy living her WAG lifestyle very much to put up with his continued philandering ways.