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05th Mar 2022

John Terry hits back at MP who criticised his praise for Roman Abramovich

John Terry has hit back at MP Chris Bryant after he criticised Terry for his "appalling" tweet to Roman Abramovich, who confirmed he was selling Chelsea.

Callum Boyle

Terry took aim at MP Chris Bryant

John Terry has hit back at MP Chris Bryant after he criticised Terry for his “appalling” tribute tweet to Roman Abramovich, who confirmed he was selling Chelsea this week.

The Russian oligarch had originally announced his intentions to hand over the “stewardship and care” to the trustees of Chelsea before later revealing he would in fact sell the club after almost two decades of ownership.

Abramovich’s decision comes amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and the threat of sanctions against the oligarch given his alleged close ties with president Vladimir Putin.

Upon hearing the news, former Chelsea captain Terry posted a message of thanks to Abramovich, with a picture of the two together followed by the caption. “The best.”

However the Labour MP Bryant condemned Terry’s tweet and urged him to remove the message. He said: “I think @JohnTerry26 you should take this down ASAP. The people of Ukraine are being bombed, shelled and murdered while you celebrate Abramovich.”

‘The same MP who voted that we invade Iraq’ – John Terry

Although the former England international didn’t directly reply to Bryant himself, Terry instead replied to a message from a user on Twitter who reserved praise for the outgoing Chelsea owner.

The user said: “I don’t know if the BritishMP wants John Terry to erase his history with Chelsea makes sense to anyone really baffles me. Roman Abramovich will forever be in the history of Chelsea FC & no one can change it. We thank you the great ROMAN with love.”

Terry replied to this tweet, accusing Bryant of claiming large sums of money in the expenses scandal, as well as voting in favour of sending troops to the Iraq war in 2003. Adding in a clown emoji at the end, he tweeted:

‘100 per cent mate. The same MP that claimed fortunes in expenses of the tax payers money. Also the same MP who voted that we invade Iraq.’

Following the succession of tweets, European sports channel CANAL+ SPORT opted to pull a pre-recorded interview with Terry that was set to go out ahead of this weekend’s fixtures.

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