Rio Ferdinand

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Rio Gavin Ferdinand (born on November 7, 1978 in Peckham, South London) is a Manchester United and an England international football player. He usually plays as a centre back, though he has played football in midfield for short spells. He is arguably one of the best centre backs in football, who possesses high quality ball-playing skills in addition to the usual traits of an experienced, brilliant defender.

Ferdinand signed as a schoolboy for West Ham United in 1992 while a student at Blackheath Bluecoat school[1] and became a professional player under their youth system and showed immense promise, and was likened to the late Bobby Moore, the former West Ham and England captain. He made his first team debut on 5 May 1996 as a substitute in 1-1 home draw against Sheffield Wednesday. Ferdinand earned his full England cap as a substitute in a friendly against Cameroon on 15 November 1997. He played for his country at the 1998 and Template:Wc, and as of 14 November 2005 he has 44 caps.

He joined FA Premier League football club Leeds United on November 2000 for £18 million, then a British record. In August 2001, he became the captain of Leeds.

Ferdinand fulfilled his promise as a world-class defender during the 2002 World Cup, where his partnership with Sol Campbell boasted the stingiest defence during the tournament and he was immediately hailed as the finished product as a result for his confident marshalling of the English defence. On 22 July 2002, Ferdinand joined another Premier League club, Manchester United, on five year deal to become the most expensive British footballer in history, and the world's most expensive defender. The fee included a basic element in the high twenty millions, and some conditional elements, which allowed Leeds to tell their fans that the were selling him for over thirty million. Leeds later took a single payment in place of all the contingent elements when they were desperate for cash during their financial crisis. The final book value of Ferdinand's contract in Manchester United's accounts was £31.120 million. [2] This included seven figure agents' fees; Leeds received less than thirty million.

Ferdinand went on to win the Premier League championship with Manchester United in his first season. He has also collected runners-up medals in the League Cup (2003) and the FA Cup (2005). England Manager Sven-Göran Eriksson recently labelled him as "lazy" during the infamous "fake sheikh" scandal.

The Duran Duran song "Rio" has been used in football chants both for and against Ferdinand; in fact in 2002, fan Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran's lead singer) promised to re-record one of the football chants if the team won. (They did not.)

Rio's cousin is former English international striker Les Ferdinand, while his brother Anton is currently a first choice centre back for West Ham United. He and his brother have recently started to compete on how may goals each one scores in a season (neither being prolific goal scorers), to this point Rio is winning 3-2.

Before December 14, 2005, he had never scored a goal for United, despite Rio coming up for nearly every corner kick and attacking free-kick. It was only against Wigan Athletic, where he finally scored, en-route to a 4-0 victory over their opponents. Most recently Ferdiand scored a last-minute winner against arch-rivals Liverpool and affirmed his popular status with Manchester United fans.


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Drug test controversy

In 2003 he failed to attend a drugs test, claiming he had forgotten because he was preoccupied with moving houses. Even still, he took a test and it showed he had no drugs in his system. However, he was still banned for missing the initial test. The FA imposed an eight month ban from January 2004 at club and international level, meaning he would miss the rest of the league season and some of the next along with all of Euro 2004. Manchester United's appeals to have the ban reduced were turned down. John Terry replaced him in the England side until his return on 9 October 2004 in their World Cup qualifier against Wales.

The Rio Ferdinand drugs test saga has caused a huge debate over how footballers found guilty of drug offences (failing or missing tests) should be treated. One of Manchester United's reasons for appealing against the ban was that a Manchester City player had also missed a drugs test but escaped with just a £2,000 fine. Several seasons earlier, Ipswich midfielder Adam Tanner had been banned for just three months after failing a drugs test. In March 1995, Chris Armstrong had become the first Premiership footballer to fail a drugs test yet had returned to the game within a month after attending a brief rehab programme. These precedents led some to claim that Ferdinand had been made an example, and that the lengthening of his ban to cover Euro 2004 is evidence of this. It should be noted that he was paid in full during his ban by the club, around £4 million pounds.

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External links

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