The England player ratings generated by the controversial FootballCynic Index have been dropped after FootballCynic demanded that they should be taken offline. The rankings, which judge the cynicism of players based on their media exposure, were published last Saturday, but FootballCynic has vehemently denied that he is associated with the index.

The ratings have already been viewed by many readers and have caused controversy throughout English football. John Terry is apparently taking legal advice about his 99.8 rating, while Ashley Cole is questioning his 98.9 index (it is not clear whether he expected it to be higher or lower). Paul Scholes, who did not go to South Africa, was apparently irate that his index was listed as 95.6. Good David Beckham was delighted with his index of 1.3 while much-maligned custodian, Robert Green, had been reported as saying that there was much debate about his 44.7 score.

The FootballCynic Index website organisers stated that “The FootballCynic Index cannot, and must not, be summarised as 'The vote given by FootballCynic' to the players, but is the result of a system which is capable of analysing and evaluating the actual cynicism adding various scientific variables." .