Have we been here before? Chaos and turmoil reigns supreme at the Football Association once more as English football hits yet another hefty bump in the road.

As the scandal around deposed England captain John Terry gathered pace over the last few weeks, the FA were being backed into a corner as the crisis grew and they needed to act decisively. And act they did.

But as ever it seems with the FA, managing a very public crisis is not its strong suit. Crisis communications is a key element of any organisation’s public image – as Whiteoaks writer Karen Franklin discusses in her last blog – and one of the most important elements is in the planning of a communications strategy.

But once the planning is complete, making the announcement requires one thing above all else – unity. Everyone has to be singing from the same hymn sheet. So for the FA to appear in the front of the media without Fabio Capello alongside them and the Italian’s subsequent appearance on TV back home in Italy, angrily disagreeing with the FA’s decision, highlighted a division that could not be resolved.

Fascinatingly, the FA had plenty of time to prepare for JT-gate – The Sequel. Yet the public spat with Capello over the stripping of Terry’s captaincy, which seems to be the result of not consulting with the one man who really should have had a strong influence on the decision, smacked of a sudden, impulsive move that is often counterproductive in such a scenario.

The timing of Capello’s exit, just four and a half months before a major international tournament this summer, has now forced the FA to deal with more unwanted conspiracy theories. Did the FA want to get rid of Capello and so used this as the way to do it? Did Capello want an exit route and jump at the chance? All unnecessary headlines when for once, surely the FA would have preferred a smooth path to Euro 2012 and handled the highly sensitive issue just a little more delicately? Whether they made the right decision or not, the public handling of the situation has left another bad taste in the mouth – a PR disaster.

So, what next? Well, Harry Redknapp is the fans and bookies favourite for the poison chalice/most coveted job in world football. Perhaps the FA can learn from the well-oiled Redknapp PR machine – as the Tottenham manager still remains the darling of the national media despite battling through a five-year court case for tax evasion, and happily admitting that he lied to one of their own for good measure.

If ‘Arry does get the England job, he’ll be well advised to brush up on his crisis comms as well…

Chris Harris