John Terry gets a dressing-down

So what if John Terry had an extramarital affair with a French-born lingerie model? Any red-blooded male who has seen photographs of Vanessa Perroncel would surely understand.

So what if she was the girlfriend of a teammate?

Is it anyone’s business but those involved? Did tens of thousands of breathless words have to be put on paper or uttered on the air worldwide over the last few days and weeks about the Chelsea and England captain’s alleged dalliance?

Apparently, the answer is yes. The world in 2010 can’t get enough of salacious gossip and rumor, especially if the stories have basis in fact.

For Fabio Capello, the problem was a different one. The longer the story kept bubbling on the front burner, the more harm it would do England’s team and England’s World Cup chances -- increasingly slim as they are.

So on Friday, England’s no-nonsense Italian coach sat Terry down and explained the facts of life to him. Embarrass yourself with one lurid revelation after another coming to light, that’s your problem. Jeopardize the England team, that’s my problem.

Terry entered the room as the England captain and left as the ex-England captain.

The armband was stripped from the 29-year-old defender and handed to an almost equally unsavory character, Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand.

Capello -- to whom the buck was passed by the so-called leaders of England’s spineless Football Assn. -- made the call in the interests of team morale and unity. Fair enough. In that case, it was a good call and a good decision.

But as Mark Lawrenson, the former Liverpool and Ireland defender, told BBC’s Radio Five Live, it should never have come to that.

“I’m surprised he had to wait for Capello to make that decision for him,” Lawrenson said. “I thought he should have resigned last week. He probably would have avoided most of the stuff we’ve read in the newspapers.”

But Terry isn’t the resigning sort. He isn’t even the apologizing sort. After being stripped of his captaincy, all he said was this: “I fully respect Fabio Capello’s decision. I will continue to give everything for England.”

And to take as much in return as possible.

Meanwhile, another former England player, Ray Parlour, made an unfortunate, albeit amusing, comment to Radio Five Live when he said: “I’m sure Capello will have had a meeting [with the players] and said, ‘Let’s put this to bed, we’re a team, we all have to get on.’ ”

Surely “putting it to bed” was what launched the scandal in the first place.

The fact is, players at the highest level of the game these days have too much money and, with it, too few morals. Almost to a man, they are tabloid fodder waiting to hit the headlines, a fact that has been bemoaned by everyone from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury.

But as Michael Deacon of England’s Daily Telegraph pithily pointed out, what’s a fan to do?

“I’m no fan of Terry -- if these allegations are true, it would seem that when it comes to making a beeline for women he displays a turn of pace routinely absent from his performances on the pitch,” Deacon wrote.

“If you expect your captain to be a model of moral probity, you can’t very well pick a 21st century footballer. You’d have to award the armband to the grounds man, say, or the tea lady.”

Unless, of course, Terry also has his eye on the tea lady.

World Cup update

Disbelief in Zurich, Switzerland. Those who remember him at all will recall that it was Swedish referee Martin Hansson who failed to spot the hand ball by Thierry Henry that led to the goal against Ireland that qualified France for the 2010 World Cup. The faux pas has not hurt Hansson. He was one of 30 referees selected to officiate at the tournament in South Africa. The list includes 10 from Europe, six from South America, four each from Asia, Africa and CONCACAF, including Benito Archundia and Marco Rodriguez of Mexico, Joel Aguilar of El Salvador and Carlos Batres of Guatemala, and two from New Zealand. No Americans were chosen.

Ready in Rome. Marcello Lippi, who coached Italy to its 2006 World Cup triumph, said he has only six places open on his team for 2010. “The team is coming together nicely -- 17 players are already certainties. I have four months left to choose these six players. . . . It’s a tough choice given that at the moment, at least 35 players are playing at a high level.”

Sad days in Lisbon. Chelsea and Portugal playmaker Deco, 32, has told Brazil’s Radio Globo that South Africa 2010 will mark his final appearance in a Portuguese jersey. “Because of my age and because it is tiring, I will say goodbye to the national team after the World Cup,” he said. Deco, whose previous clubs include Benfica and FC Porto, has played 71 games for Portugal and helped it reach the Euro 2004 final and the 2006 World Cup semifinals.

Polite ways in Bordeaux. Laurent Blanc, a starter on France’s 1998 World Cup-winning team and now coach of Bordeaux, has issued a strong denial that he is set to take over from Raymond Domenech as France’s coach. “What do you want me to tell you?” Blanc said. “I said I wouldn’t speak about it anymore, but I’ll do so anyway out of politeness. I’ll be very brief and very polite because that’s what is needed: I deny everything that has been said. Full stop.”

Chaos in Lagos: Eight days after coaching Nigeria to third place in the African Nations Cup in Angola, Shaiba Amodu has been fired as national team coach. No successor has been selected, but the Nigerian soccer federation, in its usual delusional way, has floated such impossibilities as Russia Coach Guus Hiddink and Bayern Munich Coach Louis Van Gaal. Meanwhile, Egypt Coach Hasan Shehata said he has been approached to take charge of Nigeria, but only for the tournament in South Africa.