Hughes angry at Terry delay

Mark Hughes has blasted the decision to hold John Terry’s trial until after Euro 2012.

Terry will learn if he has been found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence on July 9, just as many clubs will be returning to pre-season training following their summer breaks.

And Hughes was mystified as to why the date had to be put so far back in the calendar.

“They’ve made a decision that impacts on one of my players, they’ve given a date which is slap bang in the middle of pre-season,” he said.

“I don’t know how they’ve come up with the date, whether they have had discussions with the FA and made sure it doesn’t impact on the Euros.”

“If John goes to the Euros it probably impacts on his holidays. But it’s not in Anton’s down time.”

Hughes suggested that the saga has already had an impact on the West Ham academy graduate.

A media frenzy surrounded the preparations for Chelsea and QPR’s recent FA Cup clash over whether the players would shake hands or not, eventually seeing the pre-match pleasantries cancelled after intervention from the FA.

“It seems to have been dragging on forever. Certainly from my point of view and Anton’s, we’d have preferred it to have been done and dusted by now,” Hughes said.

“We weren’t involved in any discussions, otherwise we would have put our point over that there could be a little bit of an issue from our point of view.”