The Premier League will continue to support the idea of a fair-play handshake despite preparing for more controversies surrounding the pre-match ritual and the possibility that John Terry could be blanked on two separate occasions in little more than a month.

A series of matches in the early part of the season has led to the issue being raised behind the scenes but the Premier League has decided the good still outweighs the bad despite officials being acutely aware that the routine, introduced in 2008 as a gesture of goodwill, may be turned into something very different. Uppermost among those concerns is the game between Chelsea and QPR on 15 September, the first match involving the west London rivals since Terry was acquitted of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand during a 1-0 defeat at Loftus Road last October. Terry, who still faces a Football Association disciplinary hearing into the same allegations, will find Ferdinand and possibly some other QPR players have no intention of shaking his hand. Terry's own intentions are unclear.

Chelsea then host Manchester United on 28 October, bringing together Terry and Anton's elder brother, Rio. The pair were once the bedrock of England's defence but their relationship has been broken by the events of the past 10 months.

On the same basis, there is also substantial bad feeling between the Ferdinand brothers and Ashley Cole because of the evidence the Chelsea defender gave in support of Terry's case.

A week after the Chelsea-QPR game, Liverpool play United at Anfield in a match when the focus will inevitably fall upon what happens between Luis Suárez and Patrice Evra. Suárez and Liverpool were forced into an apology last season after he declined to shake Evra's hand, in the first match against one another since an independent FA commission found the Uruguayan guilty of racially abusing United's left-back. On that basis, it would be a considerable surprise if there was a repeat this time. In the Terry case, however, the feelings are so raw it is almost guaranteed that the relevant players will snub one another.

The Premier League is aware of opposition to the handshake routine but maintain that it shows top-level football in England in a good light and should not be abandoned when there were issues in only two of the 380 matches played in the competition last season. There is an acceptance behind the scenes that the organisation is powerless if individual players want to pursue grudges.

QPR and Chelsea were given permission to scrap the usual procedure when they played in April, as well as for an FA Cup tie in January, but that was because of a request from lawyers representing Ferdinand and Terry, mindful that the players did not want to do anything that might influence the court case.

The various issues were raised during a meeting of the Premier League's 20 managers before the start of the season. However, there was no opposition to the routine, just a request for some clarity that it would continue.