Really strange press conference with Chelsea boss Roberto Di Matteo today. As expected Di Matteo was asked about Chelsea captain John Terry receiving a four-game ban for racially abusing QPR’s Anton Ferdinand.
Terry will miss the Blues’ next four domestic games but the centre-back is eligible to play in Tuesday’s Champions League match against Shakhtar Donetsk and naturally Di Matteo was asked whether Terry would captain Chelsea against Shakhtar.
“You will have to wait and see,” said Di Matteo when repeatedly asked about the captaincy.
“We do not discuss publicly the disciplinary matters we take against our players. They remain confidential. You will have to wait and see.”
“They are internal matters, the action we take against our players, and we are not going to discuss it.”
The Chelsea boss did confirm that Terry has been told of the decision.
By all accounts the Chelsea board thought that stripping Terry of the Chelsea captaincy was too harsh a penalty. And if that is the case, why did Di Matteo simply not come out and state that Terry would remain as Chelsea captain?
By not confirming that Terry is still captain, Di Matteo allows this issue to fester and become a distraction. He will be asked about it again after the match tomorrow against Spurs and then in his press conference ahead of next week’s Champions League game.
So I do not see the point that he is trying to make, unless Di Matteo disagrees with the boards decision and feels that Terry should be stripped of the Chelsea captaincy. And that by refusing to answer the captaincy question that he hopes to put enough pressure on the club’s board to see this issue his way.
Can you think of another reason while Di Matteo simply did not confirm that John Terry was still Chelsea’s captain?
