Queens Park Rangers centre back Rio Ferdinand has said that Chelsea captain John Terry acted like an idiot over the incident three years ago in which the skipper was accused of racially abusing the former Manchester United defender's brother Anton.
Writing in his forthcoming autobiography, Ferdinand expressed a deep sense of betrayal at the actions of his former England teammate, claiming that his international career was wrecked in the aftermath of the incident.
Following a five-day trial at Westminster magistrates' court in July 2012, Terry was absolved of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand in a heated exchange during a west London derby at Loftus Road the previous October, The Guardian reported.
Terry had been accused of calling his opponent a 'f***ing black c***', a claim the skipper denied, telling the court that he was simply repeating words he believed Anton Ferdinand had said to him as they argued.
An FA hearing subsequently found Terry guilty of racial abuse, imposing a four-game ban and a 2,20,000 pounds fine on the Chelsea defender.
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Rio Ferdinand was omitted from Roy Hodgson's England squad for Euro 2012 amid fears that the inclusion of both players might have a divisive effect, although the manager claimed it was for football reasons. That effectively signalled the end of Ferdinand's international career, the player announcing his retirement the following May.
Ferdinand said that for him the biggest idiot will always be Terry, adding that as England captain and his centre-back partner he could have saved everyone a lot of pain by admitting immediately he used the word in the heat of the moment, but was no racist.
The veteran defender said that he thinks think that's probably what happened and what the truth is, adding that he and Anton would have accepted that. Instead, Ferdinand said that Terry never gave them a chance and that was the betrayal.
