Rio Ferdinand too embarrassed to tell Terry he’s been merked

RIO FERDINAND has admitted that John Terry’s appointment as England captain this month was in fact a Punk’d style wind-up for a new television series.

But the Chelsea hard man was so delighted to regain the armband that no-one connected with the prank has had the heart to tell him that it’s an elaborate joke at his expense.

It was originally planned for Ferdinand to jump out on Terry just as he introduced the team to Sir Bert Millichip before last week’s friendly against the Czech Republic, a proposal that Rio had assured show producers would guarantee “epic merkage”.

But after Terry told team-mates that the appointment had made up for a bad year in which he has missed a penalty in the Champions League final, failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and suffered a nasty bout of mumps, Ferdinand decided not to kick a man while he was down.

Fabio Capello was then roped in to tell Terry it was all a joke but he lost his bottle when he entered the defender’s hotel room to find him smiling and painting an armband on a Corinthian figure of himself.

A senior source close to the England squad has revealed that many players are deeply unsettled by the stunt, feeling that it was a step too far. “David Bentley was in tears. He really felt that his idea, to tie John’s shoelaces together, would have been less cruel” said the source.

“Morale in the camp hit levels which were only previously seen when Geoff Thomas tried that lob against the Republic of Ireland.”

Terry has reputedly refused to leave his suite at the Chelsea hotel since the fake captaincy rumour began to spread last night, and Wayne Bridge told reporters he could not even be tempted out by the offer of “two bottles of Powerade and a game of Evo”.

It is believed that England boss Fabio Capello felt the wind-up would be a perfect team bonding activity before the beginning of the World Cup qualifying campaign, and would have a similar effect to the hilarious Zat Knight call-up prank that Sven Goran Eriksson used to defuse tensions between Tord Grip and physio Gary Lewin in 2005.

Published October 30, 2008

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