Capello’s player rating system suspended

England coach Fabio Capello has moved to defuse the row over his involvement in a website which was to rate his players’ performances at the World Cup by announcing the venture has been suspended.

After a meeting between Capello and senior Football Association staff on Tuesday, the Italian’s spokesman confirmed the website, which had attracted a barrage of criticism from the English media, would be put on hold until after the finals in South Africa.

Newspapers had been unanimous in their verdict that Capello had scored an own goal by putting his name to the “Capello Index”, a website that will use software to track and rate the performance of players during matches.

“Fabio Capello’s involvement has been purely as a technical expert to establish statistical criteria for the Index,” a spokesmen for Capello said.

“He has not been directly involved in the on-line gaming element of the site.

“However, he wants to ensure that all appropriate protocols are in place before the project proceeds and has therefore decided today to postpone it.”

It had been feared the ratings system could seriously affected England’s World Cup bid because of the potential damage to the morale of the players.

Stars like Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and John Terry would have been publicly rated on the website by Capello immediately after their matches and would inevitably have wondered what influence the system will have on the coach’s own thinking.

The row over the index erupted as Capello was putting the final touches to his provisional 30-man squad for the finals in South Africa. The squad was due to be unveiled later on Tuesday.

It is not clear whether the project will go ahead as planned for the start of the new Premier League season in August.

But, by distancing himself from the venture for the moment, Capello has at least defused a potentially explosive situation, even if he can still expect tough questions at the unveiling of his squad.

It is thought the FA hierarchy were stunned when they discovered Capello’s involvement in the website and made it clear that it would pose major problems in terms of his image and potential damage to the team.

Players are notoriously sensitive to their performances being marked and the fact their coach was putting his name to such assessments was never going to go down well in the England changing room.

In the index player performances would be marked out of 100 – based on an analysis provided by Capello.

Points are awarded depending on the area of the pitch players competed in and the importance of the match.

A four-week trial of the index, limited to players from Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool – rated Ledley King as the best English defender.

And Joe Cole was ranked as the third best midfielder, even though his place in the squad Capello names on Tuesday is far from certain.