Judgement day for Terry

John Terry is expected to learn on Thursday if the FA will uphold the charge against him for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand.

The Chelsea captain’s hearing has been ongoing at Wembley since Monday, with the burden of proof in the FA’s investigation only based on ‘the balance of probabilities’ rather than ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, as was the case when he was found innocent in a criminal case in July.

Terry retired from international football with England on Sunday night just before the hearing began and claimed that the FA had made his position ‘untenable’ with its pursuit of charges after the incident, which occurred in a match against QPR in October 2011.

And Andrew Nixon, senior associate at law firm Thomas Egger, warns that the Chelsea defender is unlikely to be successful in his argument against the charge.

“Terry is arguing that the FA does not have jurisdiction to bring disciplinary proceedings,” explained Nixon in a statement, with input from solicitor colleague Thomas Barnard. “Paragraph 6.8 of the FA Rules and Regulations appears to support this but he is unlikely to succeed.

“Rule 6.8 clearly states that the rule will not apply in circumstances where there is clear evidence that the facts and matters relied upon were not correct [but] the FA will have satisfied itself during the investigation process that there is a case to answer by the player and that it is in the interests of the sport to bring the charges.

“The incident took place during a Premier League match involving two players and comments alleged to be racist. Therefore it falls squarely within the FA’s jurisdiction.

“The reason why the governing body stayed its own investigations was not to pass jurisdiction to the criminal courts but so as their own concurrent investigations would not prejudice the criminal case.

“The FA will hear this case, but with hindsight the governing body could have made life easier for itself by expediting its own internal process notwithstanding the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service had commenced investigations.”