The country's most important game for two years now hangs in the balance, with the Football Association warning England face disqualification if they do not play against Turkey.

The Football Association's decision to drop Rio Ferdinand has lead to the threat of a players strike.

The Football Association admits there has been no resolution to the unprecedented stand off between England's international players and the games governing body.

The Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand was left out of England's squad for their Euro 2004 qualifying match on Saturday for failing to attend a routine drugs test.

The FA has said it will not reverse its decision about Ferdinand.

Critics claim the Football Association has chosen an odd time to 'name and shame' Rio in such a severe manner.

Was the FA right or wrong to axe Rio Ferdinand? Have the players gone too far?

You asked Brian Glanville, veteran football writer.

Transcript

Newshost:
Hello and welcome to the Six Forum with me, Denise Mahoney. Tonight, football in crisis - over the past few days, the reputation of English football has taken a severe battering. First the report of an alleged rape by unnamed premiership footballers at a London hotel; next Rio Ferdinand is dropped from the England squad just days before a crucial international tie with Turkey. The FA says it's unacceptable for England's most expensive player to miss a mandatory drugs test. Ferdinand denies ever using drugs. And today a Leeds United player has been questioned by police over an alleged serious sexual assault. So what kind of mess has the game got itself into and why? Well here to help answer your questions is the football writer, Brian Glanville.

Good evening Brian. Can we start with a question that goes straight to the issue - it's from Amanda Matthews, London: This action is unprecedented. Do you feel that there is far more to it than meets the eye?

Brian Glanville:
Well we don't really know. I think that from one point of view the Football Association can be impugned. First of all, they seem to have sat on a splice - they've been very slow to act on it. Manchester United themselves, they're livid about it and are protecting Ferdinand. But they surely might have exerted some sort of pressure on him or seen to it that he took the test. And then again there is an old British law and custom that you're innocent until you've been proved guilty - and he hasn't been proved guilty. What he's done suggests that either he was guilty - although he never has had any drug charges of any sort against him before - or he was incredibly stupid.

Newshost:
I think what Amanda is getting at is do you think, or do people generally think that the FA is trying to make an example given that its drugs policy is taken very seriously?

Brian Glanville:
I don't think they're trying to make an example of him - no - I just think that they've been thrown into a quandary by this. It's all very strange - he drove off, he said 36 hours later that he would take the test�

Newshost:
At Manchester United?

Brian Glanville:
Yes, by which time it might well have been irrelevant or he might have been not guilty all the time. Plus the fact that for some strange reason, when he did drive away, his mobile phone was switched off - that seems rather queer. And of course in other sports, such as athletics, if you dodge a drugs tests, the roof falls in on you.

Newshost:
Let's move on to another question. This one is from Adrian Haken, England: I was under the impression the FA was there to help the England players and staff achieve success. If this is the case where is the logic in preventing Rio Ferdinand playing if he's not yet been found guilt of any offence, or even been charged with an offence?

Brian Glanville:
Well I think I've dealt with that. Gordon Taylor, of the professional Football Association, has been up in arms. Apparently the Football Association, some people feel, were running scared of UEFA, the European international body, fearing that if he were ultimately found positive, retrospectively they could be punished for getting him to play. But I can't honestly see that at all.

If one was being terribly cynical, one would say that purely from a playing point of view, perhaps they wouldn't miss him all that much because he's been in very shaky form lately. He had an awfully poor time of it against VFB Stuttgart last week for Manchester United in the European Champions Cup and gave away a goal. But that's being very cynical.

Newshost:
Chris Underwood, UK asks: I have no sympathy for Rio and absolute derision for the England squad. Everyone knows the implications of missing a drugs test in any sport Why, just because he plays for England, should Rio be excluded from these laws?

Sven-Goran Eriksson, he's had to be very careful what he says being the team manager, but he must have to accept that these are the rules and one of his players has not obeyed the rules.

Brian Glanville:
No he hasn't obeyed those rules. But as I say, in British law you are innocent until proved guilty and I would have thought that you could see the whole thing going to the European Human Rights Court in the end. It's a very complex and unfortunate business and you just do wonder why he should have drifted off like that - he's not stupid.

Newshost:
Tony, UK asks: Do you admire the solidarity of the English players over Ferdinand? As much as I hope for an English victory against Turkey at the weekend and our involvement in the European championship to come, is this a stand worth making?

Brian Glanville:
I think it is in their favour that they should stand up for one of their own. But I can't see them following through - the implications for refusing to play for their country in an absolutely vital international match cannot conceivably be overrated. Nothing like it has happened in the history of the game.

Newshost:
Given that, given what you're saying, given the timing - this e-mail has just come in from Bruce Wall, he asks: Why didn't the Football Association leave this all until next week - after this weekend's match? Just who are the FA supporting - England or Turkey?

You have got to question the speed at which they've acted.

Brian Glanville:
Well they haven't really acted with speed have they?

Newshost:
Do you not think so?

Brian Glanville:
Well no - they've had this on their plate for over a week - they've been quite slow to act on it. Yes, again this would be a slightly cynical thing to do to shelve it and not to have said anything about it at the time and again they might have had UEFA on their backs for behaving in such a way. But once more one has to say that there is the principle of British law that a man is innocent until he is proven guilty and he hasn't been proved guilty. And it has also been pointed out that not all that long ago, a Manchester City player was meant to take a drug test and he didn't turn up - apparently he said he was stuck in traffic - and nothing more was said about it.

Newshost:
This has come out in the last 24 hours.

Brian Glanville:
Yes - so what's sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander.

Newshost:
Pat Barrow, England asks: Do you think that Mr Palios is trying to make a name for himself at the FA? Rio hasn't actually failed a drug test and yet you would have thought that he was guilty of murder the way he has been treated. I'm all for higher behavioural standards in football but at such a critical time, we need to put this 'offence' in perspective.

Brian Glanville:
I don't he's trying to make a name for himself at all - quite the reverse. I think he's been slow to act and then when the dirt hit the fan, he didn't appear at the original press conference and was substantially criticised for that. So if that was making a name for yourself then I would be enormously surprised - it seems to me quite the reverse.

Newshost:
This question has come in from Jim Pineal in Scotland who asks: Do you think there will be the suggestion of a boycott if the players were earning upwards of �50,000 for the game, regardless of the result, as some do at the clubs?

Brian Glanville:
I don't think it matters to them - they're earning so much money now that it would be chicken feed even then - some of them are earning much more than �50,000 a week - so I don't think that would come into at all. I don't think money enters into it for the players one way or the other. They have shown, I suppose you can say, that their hearts are in the right place though their heads might not be. But I really cannot conceive them boycotting this match - it's so absolutely vital and I think they would risk tremendous derision and hostility in the football following public at large.

Newshost:
England would be completely out of the championship.

Brian Glanville:
Absolutely and if they get a draw they go through automatically to the finals in Portugal.

Newshost:
Here's an e-mail that's come in from Gary Chambers in West Yorkshire and says: Highly-paid footballers threatening a boycott, in our opinion, should never be given another chance to play for England.

If things do carry on over the next hours and they don't get on the plane tomorrow - that would be it for their careers, wouldn't it?

Brian Glanville:
I am quite sure it would be and that's another of the reasons I don't think they will do it. I'm sure they wouldn't rash enough to do that. I think it's a perfectly human and comprehensible reaction to stand up for Ferdinand and it doesn't do them any discredit at all. But to boycott the game entirely would be a kick in the face for the whole of the English supporting public.

Newshost:
It is unprecedented. What do you think the atmosphere has been like in that hotel in St Albans over the last 24 hours?

Brian Glanville:
I would think it would have been quite extraordinarily tense and I would think there would have been quite a bit of bitterness. As I say, I don't think the FA has handled it very well. But on the other hand, it was provoked by Ferdinand himself for "forgetting" his drug test - maybe he did forget it and there's no evidence that he was in fact guilty.

Newshost:
Connor Morrow, UK: Isn't this latest crisis one in a long line of incidents (assault and rape allegations, match fixings, dope testing)? Generally, football has not done itself any favours - it's reputation is now in the gutter.

Brian Glanville:
Well that's a generic phrase that I rather tend to dismiss. But no, things have been very, very bad indeed lately with the accusations of multiple rape against players in the Grosvenor House Hotel, a Leeds United player arrested today and accused of rape, Craig Bellamy fined for abusing people in Cardiff and then there was horrible business of this poor Asian student who was brutally beaten by Leeds United players among others outside a nightclub in Leeds. I think the problem is that you have the interaction of the erosion of the old traditionally solid British working-class - partly through the disappearance of traditional jobs, such as docking and manual labour etc - partly because with the educational revolution post-war - so many of the brightest working-class kids have got out and to a large extent you have been faced and confronted by an under-class in which so many of the young males live by and for violence as their only way of expressing themselves. A lot of these players, black and white, don't get a decent education and suddenly they're out in the world earning �45,000 a week

Newshost:
These were points made in the Six O'Clock News by Stan Collymore, who said a lot of these players aren't prepared for the world into which they're catapulted of fame and money.

One question that's come in from Dave who says: Is Rio Ferdinand being made into a scapegoat for the past fortnight?

Given what you've said about the reputation of football really deteriorating over the past couple of years, do you think that the FA has come down overly hard on him because it wants to be seen to be being very tough with people who step out of line?

Brian Glanville:
I wouldn't have thought so. It seems to me to be a specific case - we do have a drug test being dodged. Certainly they do want to implement their anti-drug programme and they have been accused in the past of being relatively lax. But then the Italians were operating a drug programme for years and it turned out they did nothing about it at all and they had laboratories which never tested the urine specimens at any time. So the Italians simply went through the motions and did nothing about it - we didn't do enough about it for a very long time. I think they do want to show that they're serious and I'm very sorry that Ferdinand has given them the opportunity to do so - very sorry.

Newshost:
We have time for one last question. This one is from Barry Smith, UK: We should remember the sad story of the first superstar footballer, George Best, who couldn't handle the fame and money and suffered from severe alcohol abuse. If poor old George had been sacked from the game at an early stage do you think it would have helped him to straighten out before his problem got so out of hand?

Brian Glanville:
I knew George Best very well from the age of about 17 or 18 years old. I was very fond of him. He was a delightful, charming, funny, clever, intelligent young man. I think the trouble was not that he should have been severely punished later but that he wasn't given the backing that he could and should have been given when he was a very young man. Matt Busby was known as the father of football etc. but like any manager he was very scantily educated - he was in the army in the war, he was a very good footballer himself but to deal with a character and a case as complex as that of George Best was beyond him, beyond Manchester United and by the time they started doing anything it was too late.

Newshost:
Brian, I'm sure this is an issue which will run and run and we will find out in the next 24 hours whether indeed England will play Turkey. Thank you very much for joining us. Goodnight.