Chelsea captain John Terry appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court where his racial abuse case started. The former England skipper was accused of racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand in a match on October 23rd, 2011. Terry and Ferdinand got into a heated argument and words were exchanged, during this argument Ferdinand allegedly taunted Terry about his affair with the Chelsea captain’s former teammate Wayne Bridges wife in which the skipper responded by racially abusing Ferdinand.

The prosecution was opened by David Penny who said: “The Crown alleges that the words he used demonstrated hostility based on Mr Ferdinand’s membership or presumed membership of a racial group.”

“The Crown alleges that the defendant, most probably in response to physical gestures being made by Mr Ferdinand which the defendant understood to refer to the well-publicised allegation of an extra-marital affair with a team-mate’s wife, shouted at Mr Ferdinand.”

During the case the Chelsea skipper was shown video footage of his alleged racial abuse of Anton Ferdinand. This case is expected by some fans to be a long one where the Chelsea captain could wrongly walk away with just a slap on the wrist even though he deserves more than that. Racism is something that FIFA has been fighting to get rid of from football and behavior like this by the former England captain is highly unacceptable.

“The Crown’s case is that the words were abusive and insulting in a straightforward sense and they were uttered by the defendant in response to goading by Mr Ferdinand on the issue of his extra-marital affair, rather than by way of exaggerated and instant querying of a perceived false allegation.”