Cole's international future is not black and white after rant

Saturday 6 October 2012

No sooner had the Football Association's independent regulatory commission closed the case on John Terry than Ashley Cole was opening his mouth.

The FA found Chelsea captain John Terry, left, guilty of racially abusing QPR defender Anrton Ferdinand

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Steve Nailor

Or his Twitter account, at least.

The Chelsea defender responded to the written reasons the FA had given for finding Terry guilty of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand with a foul-mouthed rant of his own. The commission have stated that there were discrepancies in Cole's initial statement to the FA regarding the incident and a later interview he gave to the governing body.

Cole was far less eloquent. He tweeted: "Hahahahaa, well done #fa I lied did I, #BUNCHOFTwats." The comment was retweeted more than 19,000 times before the England full-back deleted it.It was a crass statement and one ill-advised given how unedifying the whole episode has been for Cole, the FA, his club and Terry. He sought to draw a line under the incident with a statement of contrition but it remains to be seen just how damaging his indiscipline will be to his England career. Cole is in Roy Hodgson's squad for the World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Poland."I had just finished training and saw the captions on the TV screens in the treatment rooms about what was said in the FA Commission ruling about me," read Cole's statement. "I was really upset and tweeted my feelings in the heat of the moment. I apologise unreservedly for my comment about the FA."Cole has 98 caps for his country and would have expected to reach his century during the international break. The FA may well seek to exert pressure on Hodgson not to use Cole in the initial match against San Marino at least by way of a punishment, with the England manager unlikely to miss his left-back against such inauspicious opposition.The situation will only add to the headache already being nursed by Hodgson after he discussed the international future of Rio Ferdinand with commuters on the tube in London. The interest over the future of the Manchester United defender has a product of the case against Terry, who has since retired from England duty.Hodgson is known to have already spoken to Cole after his second statement was made public. However, Roberto Di Matteo did not have the benefit of privacy with which to deal with the matter, his press conference ahead of today's home match with Norwich City hijacked by news of Cole's twitter rant."We'll look at the tweet and then we'll see. Apart from this, I don't think the players are out of control," said the visibly unnerved Chelsea manager. When asked if he thought Cole should be dropped from the England squad, he replied: "That's for Roy Hodgson to decide."The situation was deemed grave enough for the club to then write their own statement in an effort to defuse the matter. The tweet will likely have been found in breach of the club's rules regarding the use of social media. "We would prefer that everyone holds any comment they have until an appropriate time and that would be when we find out if there's going to be an appeal process," said a Chelsea spokesperson.

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Cole's international future is not black and white after rant

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