England's Euro 2012 hopes blown off course by a Force 10 storm

His astonishing - and very deliberate - attack on the Football Association on Italian television last night has thrown Soho Square into turmoil and put a genuine question mark about whether he will now lead England into this summer's European Championships.

Asked if he agreed with the FA board's decision, he said: "No, absolutely not. I have spoken to the chairman and I said I thought he could not be sanctioned by sporting justice before the civil justice system had determined whether he had committed the crime he has been accused of.

"I maintain that it would have been right for John Terry to continue as captain. The fact that the board has decided in this way is because it falls under the competence regarding ethics."

The Italian clearly regards the FA's stance as
gross interference in his area of expertise and, for all the widespread applause that marked the FA's dismissal of Terry last week, it is easy to see his point. He has always believed that the manager's right to manage is sacrosanct and in that respect he will have much support within the game.

The problem now is that Capello's old-school beliefs are putting him on a collision course with FA chief executive David Bernstein. No one understands this sort of crisis better than one of Bernstein's predecessors, David Davies, who questioned whether Capello's outburst has put him in breach of his £6million per year contract.

Speaking to BBC's Breakfast Time show this morning, Davies said that Capello could face action from the FA.

"It is being taken very seriously by the FA because it may be that Fabio has breached his contract," said Davies. "You have to ask what his motive is. You have to suspect he wants to prevent Terry retiring as a player before Euro 2012 but there are wider issues.

"You could have what some of the media are calling a morality circus while England are trying to win the second major tournament in football. A contract may have been breached, there is strong leadership now at the FA from David Bernstein. Last week he wasn't slow to take things forward."

Another former FA chief executive, Mark Palios, said he believed the FA would not choose to act on any possible breach. He said: "I would think the FA will do nothing on that as we're close to a tournament and you don't want to have a real fight with the manager.

"The decision they took certainly doesn't make things easy for Capello in the dressing room because there's potentially a split. Stand back and look at it - any decision you make, how will that play out in the dressing room?"

Bernstein was today involved in a number of crisis meetings designed to answer that question and a host of others. He knows that, even for England, this is a storm of Force 10 proportions. Just four months away from the European Championships, they have a manager at loggerheads with his bosses; his most likely successor, Harry Redknapp, currently in court facing tax evasion charges; no captain and a team apparently hopelessly split over whether John Terry, who faces a charge of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand, should be even in the team. In that respect, Rio Ferdinand's weekend interview on Football Focus was a masterclass in simmering discontent over the effect the ongoing court case has had on his brother.

Should Terry be selected for England, it is difficult to see how Ferdinand can play alongside him at the heart of England's defence. The squad that Capello is due to name for the friendly against Holland later this month will be the first indication of how everyone is thinking. Will Terry be in? And if he is, will Ferdinand be out? It is becoming a mess, unprecedented even by England's chaotic standards.

So, whatever happens now - and events are moving at a dizzying pace - Capello has much to sort out, assuming the FA don't decide to get shot of him altogether before the summer. It is hard to see what exactly he hoped to gain by so publicly challenging the FA. Perhaps he was keen to reassure Terry that the player still has his support. But one obvious consequence of that is to make the job of appointing a new captain even harder.

Possible candidates like Steven Gerrard and Scott Parker may well be reluctant to put themselves forward now that it has been made so clear that the manager still wants the one player who the FA will not sanction.

In that respect, Capello has already made his impossible job that much harder, which is quite an achievement in itself.