Mike O’Brien, Minister of State at the Department of Health, has decided to enter the debate over the sacking of John Terry as captain of the England football team. Unfortunately, Mike has chosen to do so using the arguably inappropriate medium of Twitter, which, since it confines posts to a maximum of 140 characters, affords little opportunity for the development of reasoned debate.
Nevertheless, Mike, who is a highly intelligent lawyer, has apparently decided that his opinion on such a controversial moral issue can be satisfactorily encapsulated in fewer letters than those that appear on an HP sauce label, so here’s what he has to say:
The sacking of Terry is crass. Capello has bowed to tabloid pressure. Infidelity is bad but I saw no signs of fatigue in his football.
Sadly, Mike is missing the point, which is unfortunate, given that the whole point of Twitter is to be TO the point. Terry has not been booted out of the England team (though many would say he should have been); he will, it would appear, still be gracing the turf of Wembley with his unfatigued presence, three lions emblazoned on his left breast.
No, Capello has dismissed Terry as captain of his country’s national side. And Signor Capello was entirely right.
The captaincy of any national sporting side brings with it considerably more responsibility than that which comes with simply playing for it. You become an ambassador for your country. You become, to use the hackneyed phrase, a role model. Kids look up to you and aspire to be like you. It’s a very heavy thing.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has lamented that Terry’s treatment by the media has, if anything, been far too lenient. It is, he says, a matter of regret that “society has lost the sacred concept of faithfulness on staying true to one another during marriage”:
“Clearly, a lot of people think there’s no problem there and that’s a pity because adultery is adultery.”
Dr Williams is absolutely right, too. Time was, for example, when adultery was a resigning issue for politicians. Many would say it still ought to be, but that principle appears to have been watered down of late. We must await the next scandal to see what happens.
The irony of the Terry affair is that it should take an Italian to recognise that adultery should automatically disqualify an Englishman from leading his national side.
Capello, who once played for Rome, understands that, like Caesar’s wife, the captain of England should be above suspicion.
