Bad news for FA as Capello Index is taken down – but comes back again

Confusion surrounded the status of The Capello Index, the controversial online project inspired and – originally at least – backed by the England manager, Fabio Capello, this morning as users found it sporadically – but, to the Football Association's chagrin, not reliably – offline. The project, originally announced before the World Cup, was delayed until the competition's completion because of Capello's involvement with England. The website finally went live last week, with many England players receiving notably poor ratings for their performances in South Africa. Capello immediately said he had not given his permission for the ratings to be published. "I did not authorise this and am angry the index was published," he said. The Football Association released a statement on Saturday insisting that "Mr Capello's representatives have taken immediate steps to have the material taken down," but to his embarrassment no action was taken over the weekend . Action was promised today and shortly after 9am visitors to the website were greeted by no more than an error message. However if Capello and his employers at the FA were celebrating then, it was not for long – shortly after 10am the site was fully functioning once again. While the error message continued to make occasional appearances, it was clear that nobody had taken the site definitively offline.