In the Terry-Ferdinand fiasco, however, it's not a WAGS issue. It's that Ferdinand's younger brother has charged Terry with "racial abuse," thus making for an awkward choice between including Terry or Rio Ferdinand in the squad. Even after the injury to Cahill, Hodgson didn't choose Ferdinand to join the squad.
The charge against Terry won't be decided until after Euro 2012, so it's just hanging there [1] over Terry's head, and [2] over Hodgson's awkward/impossible position, given the fact that Rio F. was the bloody obvious choice - talent/experience-wise - to replace Cahill. Instead, Hodgson replaced Cahill with Liverpool's inexperienced Martin Kelly. It's all just embarrassing, dirty laundry, etc.
And made worse, indirectly, by all the complaints about racism on the part of both Ukrainian and Polish fans. Just today, the black players on the Dutch team seem to have been subjected to racist taunts. This on top of last week's BBC documentary about racism in the host countries.
http://espnfc.com/us/en/news/1089999...st-chants.html
http://espnfc.com/us/en/news/1088718...sh-racism.html
I'm very excited about the actual games. But a whole bunch of folks think that the choice of Poland and Ukraine to host this competition will turn into a PR disaster. It's verging on that on the eve of the competition's opening games.