Captain. Leader. Far-right sympathiser. Terry joins ranks of football’s radicalised | Jonathan Liew

Rupert Lowe, who left Reform, is ‘one of the most right-wing MPs many of us have seen in our lifetimes’. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

But even if we are to take Terry’s sentiments at face value, you can see where the frustration stems from. In recent months, the former England captain has been increasingly vocal about the lack of coaching opportunities granted to him since his retirement, particularly at his former club, where he has a consultancy contract and mentors the academy sides for two days a month. In January he fancied himself for the Chelsea head coach after the departure of Enzo Maresca, only to be overlooked for Calum McFarlane and then Liam Rosenior.

“I don’t feel I need to sell John Terry as a manager,” he said in February. “If someone needs to win football matches, I’m not sure you’re going to get anyone better.”

Perhaps on reflection, Chelsea may come to regret their decision to pass on a coaching CV that at the time of writing consists of spells on the Aston Villa and Leicester backroom staff, plus a stint managing the 26ers team in the first two seasons of Baller League (ninth and fifth respectively, in case you’re wondering). But of course Terry’s very public journey into the internet pipeline, while arresting enough in itself, is by no means an isolated case.

To take but one example, Matt Le Tissier is still out there, arguing with Grok about chemtrails and accusing Elon Musk’s AI bot of spouting government propaganda. Of course Le Tissier disappeared down the chute some years ago, scandalised by Covid-19 vaccines and digital ID, spreading a conspiracy theory that the Russian massacre of Ukrainian citizens in Bucha was faked.

Former Southampton player Matt Le Tissier has been brought back into the club, four years after leaving after spreading a conspiracy theory about Ukraine. Photograph: Graham Hunt/ProSports/Shutterstock

But you probably missed the news earlier this month that he had quietly returned to Southampton in an advisory role with the board. Le Tissier did not change. What changed was the cultural environment around him, a landscape in which far-right talking points are now everybody’s talking points, in which views once deemed beyond the pale are treated as valuable contributions to the discourse.

Rickie Lambert is still out there, railing at “digital enslavement” and sharing posts about a “global cult network” and demanding that everyone involved in the vaccine rollout be locked up. Joey Barton is still out there fuming about grooming gangs. Jonjo Shelvey has been extolling the virtues of Dubai in newspaper interviews, claiming that he no longer feels safe in London despite now living in a city recently under attack by Iranian missiles.

Perhaps the ex-footballer is particularly susceptible to this kind of radicalisation, spending pretty much their adult life in a kind of gilded cage, living by the hard uncomplicated certainties of performance and self-optimisation, before retiring and being forced to stare irrelevance squarely in the face. For some, clearly, the only way of recreating that buzz of instant adoration is through the dopamine syringes of social media, where the staid strictures of society can be safely circumvented, where you are still loved and adored, where you can live as a legend in perpetuity.

For Terry, a man still very much finding his feet in the right-wing grift, a world of opportunity and possibility awaits. First, the podcasts and YouTube appearances. Then the crypto and CBD deals, the material gifts of eternal martyrdom. Then perhaps the Question Time slot, the media empire, the parliamentary candidacy. It’s a tough gig, but someone has to do it. And remember: in this new world, nobody ever gets cancelled, only vindicated. There are no pariahs, just the right man in the right place at the right moment in history.

Jonathan Liew was this week named columnist of the year in the Sports Journalists’ Association awards

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