Former Premier League forward Stan Collymore has expressed in his latest piece for the Mirror that John Terry will not land a top managerial opportunity until he apologises to Anton Ferdinand.
Collymore offered his thoughts in response to the news shared by the Athletic that Terry will be returning to Chelsea to help out with the youth teams on a part-time basis.
The legendary former centre-back left his post of assistant head coach at Aston Villa in the summer to embark on his own managerial career, but Terry has been looked over by clubs for the top job so far.
Collymore feels that it is ‘obvious’ that the reason Terry has not been offered the opportunity to take the reins of a team are due to him being seen as ‘damaged goods’ in relation to his comments to Anton Ferdinand.
The pundit reiterated that Terry is still yet to apologise for the comments he made to the fellow centre-back in a meeting between Chelsea and QPR back in October 2011.
The outburst, which was found to use ‘abusive and/or insulting words’ with reference to race or colour by the FA saw the defender stripped of the England captaincy at the time.
Collymore added that a ‘stain remains’ and clubs will be reluctant to appoint Terry due to the ‘blowback’ they’ll receive for hiring someone who is seen to have racially abused someone on the pitch:
“It all cost Terry the England captaincy at the time, and for some, a stain remains.”
“It’s really simple for Terry now. Clubs will be wary of the blowback they’ll get by giving the top job to a guy who’s perceived to have racially abused an opposition player, but didn’t apologise face to face, only in a lawyerly statement released by his club.”
As Collymore references, with Terry still refusing to comment on the matter when approached by Ferdinand for his documentary that aired in November 2020, this incident will still be fresh in the mind of many – notably club shot-callers in a world where historic abuse of all kinds is discussed and the initial handling of such incidents slammed with calls for retrospective action.
Collymore added that a top Championship club or Premier League side ‘will not touch’ Terry until this has been addressed with a public apology:
“Namely, a big Championship or Premier League club won’t touch him until he apologises publicly all these years on, given the anti-racism campaigning of footballers in recent years including players taking the knee.”
The pundit even believes that Terry would be in line for a good opportunity in the second-tier at the end of the season if he says sorry for his comments to Ferdinand in 2011:
“If he came out tomorrow and said “Anton, my apology”, he’d be in the running for a good Championship job come May.”
It is somewhat a surprise to see that Collymore has come out and said what many will have been thinking but perhaps afraid to air, and it will be interesting to see if the Chelsea legend responds with an apology after a decade now that his future ambitions in football may rest on it.
More must-reads: