The England and Chelsea defender Ashley Cole has apologised unreservedly for his rant about the FA, after the commission found John Terry guilty of racially insulting Anton Ferdinand during a match between Chelsea and QPR last season.
The independent Football Association regulatory commission said they found discrepancies between Ashley Cole’s initial statement and then a later statement of events. This was regarding what Ashley Cole supposedly heard Anton Ferdinand say to John Terry.
Ashley Cole’s outburst came by form of a Tweet saying:
“Hahahahaa, well done #fa I lied did I, #BUNCHOFT****”.”
The Tweet was re-tweeted nearly 20,000 times before he decided to delete it.
Cole released a statement on Friday afternoon saying:
“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. I was really upset and tweeted my feelings in the heat of the moment. I apologise unreservedly for my comment about the FA.”
Ashley Cole currently has 98 caps for England, has this outburst made a difference to his future prospects with the national team? Cole is still in the squad for the next World Cup qualifiers, which will be against San Marino and Poland. There has been no statements from the FA, we understand that Ashley Cole has no intension of quitting the England team.
Ashley Coles part in the case was surrounding the claim that John Terry had only been repeating the words that Anton Ferdinand accused him of saying. The words were allegedly “f***ing black c***”.
Apparently Cole didn’t mention the word “black” in his initial statement for the FA on October 28. On the 3 November, the Chelsea club secretary David Barnard, asked the FA to insert the word “black” into Ashley Cole’s witness statement, he suggested that Cole may have heard Anton Ferdinand use the term.
After Terry was cleared in magistrates court in July, Rio Ferdinand hit back at Ashley Cole with a tweet: “I hear you fella! Choc ice is classic hahahahahaha!!”
A ‘choc ice’ – is a slang term suggesting someone is black on the outside and white on the inside.
This earned Manchester United defender a £45,000 fine from the FA for Improper conduct.
