John Terry Verdict

 The verdict has come through in the John Terry trial and from what I’ve read on the BBC website the only logical outcome was the ‘not guilty’ verdict that has been delivered. It’s difficult not to draw comparisons with the charge and subsequent ban levelled at Luis Suarez earlier in the year.

 The first question that comes to mind is how can a court find somebody not guilty despite having video evidence of Terry calling Anton Ferdinand a ‘f***ing black c*nt’ whereas the FA can find Luis Suarez guilty despite having no video evidence, no audio evidence and no witnesses to the exchange between him and Patrice Evra?

 It’s simple really, what John Terry said is without doubt as it was caught on camera, but Ferdinand’s part in the exchange was not captured, so despite Ferdinand’s own testimony it is not possible to put Terry’s remark into the context of a conversation and be 100% sure you have it correct. Therefore it doesn’t mean that John Terry’s defence team’s version of events is definitely the truth, but it means it is a possibility that this version of events actually happened, so there is genuine doubt over whether Terry is guilty, meaning he has to be found not guilty. This is how our justice system works and in my opinion it is exactly how it should work, innocent until PROVEN guilty.

 When the FA conducted it’s investigation into Luis Suarez they used a different system of reaching a verdict. There were two versions of events, that told by Patrice Evra and that told by Luis Suarez, and the FA basically decided which one they felt was most likely, and Suarez was not found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, he was found guilty on the basis of the FA deciding what Evra said was more plausible than what the Uruguayan claimed was said.

 I would suggest with a great deal of confidence that had Luis Suarez been tried in a court of law the way Terry has been the judge would have said pretty early on that the levels of proof were so low that the case would have been thrown out before a verdict was reached. I’m not going to speculate on how the FA would find John Terry if they investigated him under the same conditions they investigated the Liverpool player but it will be interesting to see if we are given the opportunity to find out.