Anton Ferdinand has denied John Terry’s claims that he reached out to him in the wake of the 2011 racism case.
An independent disciplinary panel found former England captain Terry guilty of racially abusing Ferdinand, brother of Rio, during a Premier League match between Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea in October 2011.
Earlier this year, Ferdinand opened up over the incident in a new documentary, which the former defender hoped would help educate the next generation of footballers, as well as the general public.
And in an interview with The Times on Saturday, former England and Chelsea defender Terry said he frequently reached out to both Rio and Anton Ferdinand after the scandal.
He said: “I tried to phone Rio and Anton on numerous occasions, literally the same night [as the game], the day after and that week after the incident.
“Then about three, four years ago I see Rio on the beach in Dubai, so I approached him and said, ‘Have you got five minutes? I’d like to talk to you.’ He was like, ‘I don’t want to talk to you, JT.’ I was prepared to address the issue.
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“I tried to phone Anton, Rio and his agent, Jamie Moralee. And in the lead-up to the programme my legal team had contact with the producers with the view to communicate but they were very evasive with the content and what they were trying to achieve.
“It was a lot bigger than it should have been for me. We could have dealt with the issue. I was very keen to get that done.”
Earlier on Saturday, Ferdinand responded to Terry’s claims on Twitter, stating: “I never received a call personally from JT prior to the documentary or during the process.
“As I stated on the doc, the door is still open to have a conversation if he’s serious about racism in football and wanting to create positive change. Call me then JT?”
Ferdinand, who came through the ranks at West Ham and enjoyed spells at Sunderland and later Reading and Southend United, said the incident made him ‘fall out of the love with football’ in the latter stages of career, and the documentary was ‘therapeutic’ after years of struggling to process his thoughts and emotions.
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