Delay in John Terry decision ‘taken by FA alone’, says CPS
The year-long delay in concluding the Football Association’s disciplinary process against John Terry was a decision “taken by the FA alone”.
The FA chairman, David Bernstein, has implied the decision to delay the regulatory inquiry into Terry’s racist remark towards Anton Ferdinand had been taken after an intervention by the Crown Prosecution Service. He wrote in The Daily Telegraph on Friday that his organisation was “asked to respect both the police investigation and, later, the [CPS]’s criminal proceedings.”
However, the CPS has told Telegraph Sport it had made no application for the FA to delay.
“When the allegations against John Terry first came to light, the Football Association asked the CPS for its view on whether or not any action by the Association should be halted until the end of criminal proceedings,” a CPS spokesman said.
“We put forward our views about possible risk and prejudice but we did not give any instructions either way. The decision to allow criminal proceedings to take precedence was one taken by the FA alone.”
The deferral of the proceedings until after the criminal trial – at which Terry was acquitted of the charges – has been widely criticised in football. Lord Herman Ouseley, an FA councilor and the chairman of Kick It Out, signalled the problems the delay gave rise to.