Bye Bye Fabio, The Pleasure Was Your Bank Manager's

Fabio Capello has resigned in the run up to a major international football, leaving behind his £6 million per year pay packet, although with a little financial sweetener by all accounts. He's resigned over the FA stripping John Terry of the captaincy due to the England defender's pending trial for the alleged racial abuse of Anton Ferdinand.

Most of the papers and many fans are saying that Fabio didn't have a leg to stand on but I have some sympathy for the Italian. Terry hasn't been found guilty yet, and those newspapers who whinge about Capello are the same papers that will resolutely defend the right of someone to be considered innocent until proven guilty, assuming that it will sell papers - stuff the individual if it doesn't. If found guilty then Terry should probably never play for England again and certainly not captain the side.

Brighton manager Gus Poyet, who has a recent record of only opening his mouth to change feet (remember Suarez's incident with Evra?), made a valid point in that the FA have pleased no-one with this decision. Either you do nothing or you ban him totally from representing his country. What the FA have actually done is go halfway, which is utterly (and predictably) spineless, although it has saved them a packet in Capello's wages.

John Terry will still be in the squad for the Euros, whether you think he is guilty or not, so this symbolic "stripping of the captaincy" is totally pointless. Unless of course, the point was to provoke Capello into resigning. We will almost certainly never know.

Suarez Eight Match Ban

No-one can condone racism in any walk of life, even football, which often likes to think of itself as being above the law on occasion. If Luis Suarez was guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra he deserves everything he gets in the way of a ban and/or fine. Evra has admitted to insulting Suarez in Spanish just before the incident, although the Uruguayan told the FA he never heard it."

I have one worry about the whole incident and that is the fact that the only person who heard the comment, and it was apparently said ten times, was Patrice Evra. This despite the fact that there were other players around the incident. It then boils down to Evra's word against Suarez's word, and the FA chose to believe Evra. Why or how was the evidence in favour of a judgement against Suarez? As a PR exercise this is a potential disaster for the Football Association, as some members of the footballing community will feel aggrieved at the outcome since it appears that nothing has been proven.

Would the same judgement have been made had Suarez reported Evra for racist comments?

I get the impression that whatever the actual story, and let's face it the only people who really know what went on are Suarez and Evra, the FA were going to "send out a message" to deter other players from making the same error in judgement.

I thought Mario Balotelli made a poignant/amusing remark on twitter along the lines of "The FA believe Evra with no evidence whatsoever; the entire Manchester United squad racially abused me then - haha".

I await with interest the conclusion of the police enquiry into the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand case (the police are involved because it was reported by a member of the crowd), where there is TV evidence incriminating Terry, the current England captain.