PETER CROUCH revealed John Terry used "disgusting" methods to manipulate Premier League referees.
And in doing so he managed to avoid bookings and red cards on the pitch.
The former Liverpool, Portsmouth and Stoke beanpole striker claimed ex-Chelsea captain Terry would adopt genius ploys even before kick-off to curry favour with top-level officials throughout the season.
TNT pundit Crouch said Terry would disarm refs by addressing them by their first names and asking about how their families were getting on.
And as a result, when the heat of the battle intensified on the pitch, some referees would hesitate to caution the Blues defender if he caused an infringement or produced a bad tackle.
Speaking on Back of the Net show on Amazon Prime back in 2019, Crouchy said: “What I saw creeping into the game, during my time, was when the captains would go in before the game and speak to the ref.
“To me, they would always be ‘ref’. I have grown up with just ‘ref’.
"Now it’s like Mike and James. They are all called by their first names. It’s all to get them onside.
“I remember Darren Fletcher was good at it. But John Terry was amazing at it. Just getting around the ref, ‘Ah, Mike, you alright? How is the family?’ All this.
“Unreal. I thought, ‘This is disgusting.’ He was crawling around the ref.
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“And it meant [the ref] would think twice. If he clattered someone in the first minute, he’d get up and say, ‘Sorry Mike.’ He would then think twice about booking him. It’s little things like that.”
SunSport also revealed Terry and his Chelsea pals cheekily tricked Diego Costa into making X-rated comments to a Premier League ref – almost getting the fiery forward sent off.
Costa arrived in the Premier League barely knowing a word of English, so the Blues squad made the most of the opportunity to play the hilarious prank by telling Costa the word for "sorry" was actually "c***".
In the episode, Crouch interviewed his ex-Liverpool team-mate Steven Gerrard, now the Al-Ettifaq manager in Saudi Arabia, about his favourite players, moments and club goals at Anfield.
Crouch and Patrice Evra, the retired former France and Manchester United left-back, also traded stories about their experiences with Cristiano Ronaldo.
Evra said: “Ronaldo invited me to lunch one day after training. I was really excited. I thought we can have some good food, proper food. We had a hard training session.
“When I arrived, the dinner was already salad, plain chicken, water, no bread, no bagel for the French. Nothing.
“We started eating. I was like: ‘OK, maybe the main course is coming.’ But nothing.
“He said, ‘Let’s play two-touch.’ So, we started to play football in his garden.
“I thought, ‘This is a really weird lunch.’
'TREAT ME LIKE A KING'
“After that he said, ‘Let’s go swimming.’ I said, ‘OK, we have just finished eating, I don’t want to vomit in your pool.’
“We started swimming slowly. Then he was swimming like it was the Olympics.
“After that, he said, ‘Actually, let’s go to the sauna.’
“I said, ‘Wait Cristiano, I respect you, I love you. You said we would have a nice lunch, but I feel we have had a second training session. I will never come again to your house.’
“He started laughing. I said, ‘No, I am your guest. You should treat me better next time.’
“So, I won’t go again to his house until he swears he will treat me like a king.”
Crouch, meanwhile, said Ronaldo was incredibly vain during his days with Manchester United.
He said: “One of the England lads – I won’t mention his name – told me a funny story when they were winding up Ronaldo in the United dressing room.
“He said to Ronaldo, ‘You are not as good as Messi.’
“He then walked past the mirror and said, ‘But Messi doesn’t look like this!’”
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