Anton Ferdinand says that he wanted to ‘go and hurt’ John Terry after seeing footage of an incident taking place a while back.
The 35 year old described the moment he first found out that he had been racially abused by the former Chelsea and England footballer turned Aston Villa assistant coach.
It was in October 2011 that trouble first broke out, QPR had just beaten nine-man Chelsea by a single goal in what played out to be a bad-tempered West London derby, causing a few changes to the Premier League table too.
In that game, Ferdinand and Terry had been involved in a heated verbal exchange, then after the game, Ferdinand went to see his family in his hospitality box at Loftus Road, oblivious to the fact he was at the centre of the biggest racism storm in English football history.
‘I walked into the box with a swagger because we had just beaten Chelsea,’ he recalled. ‘My mum said, “Anton, are you alright?” and I was like, “Yeah course, we just beat Chelsea”. My wife said to me, “Well you better have a look at this” and handed me her brother’s phone.
‘This is the first I am seeing it. I am looking at the phone and rage just came over me. You know when you say your blood boils? It just hit me.
‘He had said, “You f****** black c***, you f****** knobhead”. I had no idea that anything like that had occurred on the pitch. I never ever heard anything that was said.
Anton Ferdinand wanted to ‘go and hurt’ John Terry: ‘I couldn’t believe what I was watching. I felt hurt but mainly anger towards him. I wanted to go and hurt him.
‘It was only because my mum was at the game. She was the only person who could have stopped me. She said, “I know what you want to go and do but now is not the time”.
‘After that moment things weren’t the same. The way it was dealt with afterwards made things escalate out of control.’
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At the time, he stayed quiet on the matter though he did take advice of lawyers, who did not want to prejudice a potential criminal case.
Speaking to a psychotherapist on his upcoming BBC documentary, Ferdinand admits: ‘I still carry that feeling of letting people down for not speaking up. I still feel guilt and that eats away at me more than anything. I don’t know how to get rid of it.’
John Terry’s racist footage towards Ferdinand went viral, and a member of the public took it upon themselves to make a formal complaint to police about the Chelsea centre-half, who was stripped of the England captaincy in February 2012. Five days later, Fabio Capello then resigned as the national manager.
The case went to trial in July 2012 and Terry’s defence was that he thought Ferdinand had accused him of saying ‘f****** black c***’ and he merely repeated the words back to him, denying he said them first.
Court found Terry’s version of events to be ‘unlikely’, however there was sufficient doubt and he was cleared of racial abuse.
The FA required proof for their own investigation and two months later they found Terry guilty of racial abuse and banned him for four games.
‘When Terry lost the captaincy, it was like it became my fault and everywhere I played I got booed,’ says Ferdinand. ‘It felt like I was the one who deserved to be racially abused.
‘Things were thrown at my mum’s house – eggs, bricks, the lot. I got hate mail saying, “I am going to rape your mum and your sister” and bullets in the post.
‘My social media was going crazy. Abuse after abuse. You mentally can’t deal with it. I can stand there and be macho and say I wasn’t traumatised but I actually was.
‘All that love was ripped out of me. I hated the game. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to feel the way I felt.’
Anton Ferdinand has been racially abused via social media this week after promoting his documentary, which shows him admitting to feeling guilty for his mum falling ill with cancer and dying in 2017.
‘I wish that it didn’t have the impact that it did have on my family,’ he says. ‘It would have hurt my mum to see me go through this in front of the whole of England. That’s when she started to get ill.
‘My mum died from cancer and I sit here today and think is that my fault. I played a part in these things happening to my family. ‘
On the programme, you can see Ferdinand emailing Terry in an attempt to talk to him for the first time since the incident, they had hugged after Terry asked ‘are we cool?’ and described their exchange as ‘a bit of banter’.
Terry chose not to reply to the email. His representatives told producers he ‘wanted to move on with his life and career and doesn’t want to reopen a case on television that was decided in court’.
‘I saw John Terry take the knee, fair play to him,’ adds Ferdinand, who has never had an apology from the former England team-mate of his older brother Rio. ‘I hope him taking the knee and showing he is against racism is sincere. I hope it is coming from a good place. But don’t just take a knee, come and speak about it.’
Fans took to social media when seeing that Anton Ferdinand wanted to ‘go and hurt’ John Terry after seeing footage but also that he has suffered more abuse online…
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Doesn’t prevent racism but will prevent people spouting what they want, when they want without receiving a punch in the face.
— WBA Rainbow Stand 🅙 (@TheRainbowStand) November 25, 2020
Alas @instagram doesn’t think it’s racist. pic.twitter.com/2NPSq8bnXV
— 77SPB (@Butts1977) November 25, 2020
Probably John Terry again in disguise. He will get away with it like last time
— Lee Gresham (@kopite_83) November 25, 2020
Disgusting…… Anton is a very humble chap, can’t believe this country at times. 🥵
— Dave (@davsExt) November 25, 2020
Don’t expect anything less now with social media and twitter is the worst, takes less than 5 minutes to create an account and you can use any alias you like, the world has become a much worse place since social media was invented
— 🔥Darren🔥 (@BergersLeftFoot) November 25, 2020
Racism, like I honestly do not get it, like why?! It baffles me how someone could abuse someone for their race and it’s the same for their sexuality and regilous beliefs! Like who cares about that stuff my main opinion is if there good to get on with or a prick 😂
— Rigger (@LiamHammer7) November 25, 2020
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