Nothing sweet in FA's fudge

Take one unfortunate incident beyond your control – John Terry's behaviour at Loftus Road – and then compound it with wrong decision after wrong decision and we're left with what we have now. The FA strip Terry of the England captaincy despite the fact that he has not yet been judged, not by a court of law and not by their own sporting tribunal. And while you can reasonably argue that the Crown Prosecution Service have rather more important things to do and that, in any case, their delays were beyond the FA's control, you simply can't help but blame the FA for not allowing sporting justice to take its course.

The FA argue that they had to halt their inquiry into the alleged racist abuse of Anton Ferdinand by Terry because, once he was charged by the CPS, their inquiry might have prejudiced his civil case. And the law of the land – as we know – trumps football law. Well, that argument is beyond flimsy. First and foremost, the incident took place on October 23, 2011. Terry wasn't charged until December 21, 2011. The FA had 59 days in which to conduct an inquiry and a hearing, possibly an appeal as well.

The inquiry into the Luis Suarez/Patrice Evra affair did take a whopping 58 days to complete, but that was a far more complicated case involving more witnesses, repeated incidents in the course of a match and language experts. This case, by contrast, was pretty open and shut.

You call the witnesses – half a dozen guys on the pitch at the time plus, possibly, some fans in the stands – you decide who seems more credible and you issue your verdict based on the evidence. And yet, somehow, they dragged their feet.

The minute the CPS announced that Terry would be charged, the FA were encouraged to suspend their own inquiry. They were only too happy to do so. Let the real cops and judges decide this prickly matter. What better way to pass the buck?

In fact, though, the FA were under no obligation to do so. They were merely "encouraged" to halt proceedings. Had they wanted to keep sporting and civil justice separate they could have done so. The 2008 Neville Report into the Kieren Fallon case established that there is no legal principle preventing a sport's governing body from conducting their own inquiries.

The fact that, in the Terry situation, the civil and the sporting cases are very different only makes the FA's course of action more questionable. In one case, the plaintiff is a member of the public and Terry is charged with a "public order offence" which carries a maximum fine of £2500, or about half-an-hour's work based on his weekly wage. In the other, he's charged by the FA for a sporting crime which is very serious and which could cost him – if the Suarez case is anything to go by – two months or more on the sidelines. Most importantly, the burden of evidence is far higher in a civil case than it is in a sporting case. But the FA took the easy way out, probably thinking that Terry would be charged and judged in a matter of weeks. They could then hold their own hearing, issue their own punishment (in case of guilt) and everything would be neatly wrapped up in time for the Euros.

Well, it wasn't. And once they realised the case would not be wrapped up until after the Euros at the earliest, they felt they had to do something. And that something was – as ever – a fudge. They paid lip-service to those who wanted Terry dropped altogether while, at the same time, making sure that one of their veteran defenders remained in the squad. That way they could stay fuzzy on one of the most basic principles of western jurisprudence: that you're innocent until proven guilty. Passing the buck. Again.

Those who wanted him banned came up with the feeblest of arguments. They pointed out that a policeman or teacher who was accused of racism would be immediately suspended pending an investigation. Well, Terry doesn't work in law enforcement. He doesn't have the power to arrest or harass people. Nor is it his job to teach young minds about right from wrong.

Then there was the concern about the FA taking the lead in the fight against racism and how it would "look" in the eyes of the rest of the world if they complained about England players getting racially abused in foreign lands while their own captain was facing a racism charge. Believe it or not, most of the rest of the world doesn't really give a hoot about how England "look".

And then – my personal favorite – the simple statement that a man accused of racism can not "lead a nation". Well, Terry does not – and never did – lead the nation. David Cameron does. So does, in her own way, the Queen.

The one reason to drop him altogether concerns his England team-mates and how they might feel about playing alongside Terry. If it affects the team's performance then, yes, there's a strong argument to leave him out. But only a fool would think that any England footballer would base their opinion on Terry on the outcome of a trial for a public order offence.

Most of the England squad have known him for years. Their opinion of him will be pretty much set in stone, no matter what the CPS (or, for that matter, the FA's own judicial process) determine.

Anybody stuck in an unhappy relationship will know the threat: "If you don't change, I'm leaving you!" It's not sophisticated but it's only human. And it works.

Jose Mourinho has grumbled all season about a perceived lack of appreciation by the Spanish media, and occasionally Real fans too, among many other things. Last week, it was reported that he was leaving Real Madrid in the summer, come what may. But is it all a ploy?

What more control Real Madrid (who dispatched Jorge Valdano, their director of football, meaning that now there are just two men above Mourinho in the Real pecking order) could give him – short of implanting chips in the players' brains – is unclear. But given this is Mourinho and he's pulled this stuff before (successfully, one might add), you would not count anything out.