Players, managers, fans and administrators have all had a go at the decision to fix his trial date for allegedly racially abusing Anton Ferdinand to after the European Championships in July.
It may seem like a long time for a case to get to court, after all the alleged offence (which Terry denies) was back in October. However, anyone with any experience of the British judicial system will tell you that this is not out of the ordinary.
In a previous life I used to be a crime reporter and following the passage of a case from the point of charge to the actual trial could often take between nine months and a year, sometimes more.
And there is another football matter being dealt with in the courts that has taken far longer to develop significantly.
Directly after my crime reporting days (and not because of the boredom of waiting for cases to come to fruition) I was lucky enough to join a highly regarded pub trade title. This was towards the tail end of 2007.
On the very first occasion that I met my new colleagues, appropriately enough in a pub for a Christmas party, the magazine’s chief news hound said he was unable to stay out that night due to having to cover an important court case the next day.
I admired his dedication (and quietly frowned upon his reluctance to work with a hangover) and vowed to find out more about the case, after all it was surely significant.
He explained it involved a licensee from a Portsmouth pub who was contesting a conviction for screening foreign satellite football. Her name was Karen Murphy and more than four years after I heard her name for the first time that case is still to be resolved.
The issue took another twist this week when the Premier League announced it would recommence prosecuting pubs that screen football using a European feed. This followed a High Court ruling in a case involving suppliers of foreign satellite equipment. Of course the Premier League hadn’t previously bothered to tell pubs they were not prosecuting such cases but that’s by the by…
A definitive ruling on the Murphy case, following direction from Europe last year, should be made later this month. But don’t be surprised if it is adjourned for one reason or another and continues to drag.
The problem with all of these delays is the incredible confusion it has created for licensees. Can you screen foreign satellite football? What if the card was purchased outside of the EC? Is it illegal? Will I get fined?
There has been a real lack of clarity on any of the above in the last few years so hopefully we are reaching the point of a clear and final ruling.
Matt Eley is the Inapub Editor. Follow him at www.twitter.com/mattheweley
