England coach Fabio Capello quits over team captain dispute

PanARMENIAN.Net - Embattled coach Fabio Capello walked away from the English national soccer team, leaving the program in chaos five months before the start of the European Championships, LA Times reported.

Capello met with officials of England's Football Assn., after which the FA issued a statement confirming Capello's resignation.

The coach and the association have been locked in a bitter feud over the status of former team captain John Terry, whom the FA stripped of his leadership role for his alleged role in a racial incident during a Premier League match in October. Terry, who plays for Chelsea, is facing a criminal trial this summer after being charged with abusing Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.

David Bernstein, FA's general chairman, said last week that Capello's opinion was not considered in the association's decision about Terry's captaincy, a move that undermined the Italian-born coach. Capello fired back by telling Italian television Bernstein was "absolutely" wrong and, according to the U.K.'s Sky News, telling Italpress that he was "gravely offended" by the move.

"After the weekend it was clear there was going to be some conflict,'' Gareth Southgate, a former England captain and now the FA's head of elite development, told reporters.

Capello's only statement said media reports from Italy claiming that he had criticized the FA were false. "I haven't said anything and I won't say anything,'' he told the Italian news agency ANSA.

Capello, 65, a strict disciplinarian who has coached at Milan and Real Madrid as well as with the Italian national team, replaced Steve McClaren as England's coach after the country failed to qualify for the 2008 European Championships. Capello quickly turned the team around, going 28-8-6, the highest winning percentage of any English coach since World War II.