Fabio Capello has reacted angrily to the FA’s decision to ban John Terry from wearing a cardigan out to dinner last night.

According to Football Burp sources, the Chelsea defender was all set to go to the Benihana on the King’s Road with a wife, believed to be his own, when he received a phone call from English football’s governing body forbidding him to leave the house wearing a somewhat garish cardi that his dear old mum half-inched him for Christmas.

Speaking with the aid of a crack team of interpreters, Capello insisted that he should be consulted over all future fashion decisions pertaining to any of his senior players, particularly those that have anything to do with a small cotton band worn around the bicep that supposedly carries some kind of magical property enabling the wearer to go about their work in a more diligent manner than if he or she wasn’t wearing it.

The Italian, who has six months left on his contract, said: “He’s only going to end up covered in soy sauce and wasabi paste anyway, so let him wear what he bloody well likes.

“I do not appreciate the FA phoning up my player to say, ‘Really? You’re going to go out wearing that? No no, nothing, nothing. It’s just that…’ without my expressed permission. I feel that it undermines my position in ways that can only affect my ability to guide this team through the kind of successful spell that wouldn’t result in my premature, costly removal from the hot seat.”

Capello then pulled his trousers down, stuck a pencil up each nostril and wore a pair of Y-fronts like a shower cap. As we go to print, he is said to still be running around Soho Square flapping his arms like wings, emitting guttural squawks and slapping bumper stickers bearing the legend “Respect My Authoritah” on the chests of everyone he passes.

One onlooker said: “Now there’s a man who knows he’s onto a good thing.”