Rio Ferdinand

Rio Ferdinand

Personal information
Full name	Rio Gavin Ferdinand
Height	1.89 m (6 ft 2 in)
Position(s)	Centre-back
Team information
Current team	Manchester United
Number	5
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 07:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Rio Gavin Ferdinand (born 7 November 1978 in Peckham, London) is an English footballer. He plays at centre-back for Manchester United in the Premier League and at the international level for the England national football team. He has achieved 67 caps for the English national team while being selected for three FIFA World Cup squads.

He began his career with West Ham United and was then transferred to Leeds United for a record-breaking fee, 20 months after he then joined Manchester United, breaking the same fee record in the process.

Early life

Ferdinand grew up in Peckham. He has several brothers and sisters, a brother and sister from his mother's remarriage. One of his brothers is Anton Ferdinand, the West Ham defender, while former England striker Les Ferdinand is his cousin.

West Ham

After initially being scouted at Queens Park Rangers, Ferdinand started as a striker then he later moved into the centreback position. Ferdinand signed as a schoolboy for West Ham United in 1992 while a student at Blackheath Bluecoat school and became a professional player under their youth system. On 5 May 1996, Ferdinand made his senior team debut as he came on as a substitute for Tony Cottee in a 1-1 home draw against Sheffield Wednesday. In the 97-98 season, Ferdinand won the Hammer of the Year award at the young age of just 20.

Leeds United

Ferdinand joined FA Premier League football club Leeds United in November 2000 for £18 million, then a British transfer record as well as becoming the world's most expensive defender. In August 2001 he became the captain of Leeds.

Manchester United

On 22 July 2002, Ferdinand joined another Premier League club, Manchester United, on a five year deal to become the most expensive British footballer in history, the world's most expensive defender again (a title he had lost in 2001 to Lilian Thuram). The fee included a basic element in the high twenty millions, and some conditional elements, which allowed Leeds to tell their fans that they 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 £33 million. This included agents' fees, with Leeds receiving in the region of £29 million.

Ferdinand went on to win the Premier League championship with Manchester United in his first season. He has also collected a winner's medal in the League Cup (2006) and runners-up medals in the League Cup (2003) and the FA Cup (2005).

Ferdinand in Manchester United shirt.

On 14 December 2005, in a game against Wigan Athletic, Ferdinand scored his first goal for United, en-route to a 4-0 victory. He followed this up with a powerfully headed goal against West Bromwich Albion. He then scored a last minute winner against Liverpool at Old Trafford, possibly his most important Manchester United goal to date. In the corresponding fixture in the following season on 22 October, 2006, Rio scored again in a 2-0 victory. Ferdinand and his brother held an informal competition on how many goals they could score during the 2005-06 season (neither being prolific goal scorers), which Rio won 3-2.

Following impressive and consistent performances in the league, Rio Ferdinand was named in the 2006/07 PFA Premiership Team of the Season alongside seven of his fellow Manchester United teammates.

Ferdinand started the 07-08 season well, he was part of a United defence that managed to keep 6 clean sheets in a row in the Premier League, before conceding an early goal to Aston Villa at Villa Park on 20 October 2007. It was also during this game where Ferdinand scored his first goal of the season, which was United's 3rd goal of that game, with a left foot strike which took a very strong deflection off one of Villa's defenders. Just 3 days later, Ferdinand scored his first European goal for United by opening the scoring against Dynamo Kyiv, with a superb header. United dominated the game and won 4-2.

On 12 January 2008 Ferdinand bagged a rare Premier League goal in a 6-0 hammering of Newcastle United at Old Trafford

In their FA Cup quarter-final match against Portsmouth on 8 March 2008 when Manchester United dominated, Ferdinand made a rare appearance as a goalkeeper, after Edwin van der Sar left the pitch with a groin injury and the replacement keeper, Tomasz Kuszczak, was sent off after conceding a penalty. Despite diving the right way, he was unable to save Sulley Muntari's spot kick, and Manchester United were eliminated from the FA Cup. [1].

On 6 April 2008, against Middlesbrough, Ferdinand limped out of the match due to foot injury and he was rated doubtful whether he would face A.S. Roma in the champions league, quarter-final, second leg, on 9 April 2008 at Old Trafford, but he was passed fit at started the match. He played the full 90 minutes, even though at half-time he had three stitches put into his right foot after being stood on in the first-half by Daniele De Rossi of A.S. Roma.

Despite having been linked with a move to Barcelona, it was announced on 16 April 2008 that, along with Michael Carrick and Wes Brown, Ferdinand had agreed to sign a new five-year contract, worth around £130,000 a week, which would keep him at Old Trafford until 2013. The contract was finally signed on 15 May 2008.

On 21 May 2008, Ferdinand Captained Manchester United to a Champions League Final win against Chelsea. He accepted the trophy together with Ryan Giggs, as Giggs was the on field captain for most of the matches during that season. Gary Neville, the official captain of Machester United, did not feature much due to injuries throughout the season.

International career

At the age of 19 years and 8 days, Ferdinand earned his first full England cap as a substitute in a friendly against Cameroon on 15 November 1997, making him the youngest defender to play for England at the time, a record broken in 2006 by Micah Richards. At the age of 20, he was selected for the 1998 FIFA World Cup squad as a back-up defender, but was excluded from the final squad by manager Glenn Hoddle after being charged with drink-driving. Ferdinand was selected as a first choice player at the 2002 and 2006 tournaments. Ferdinand has played ten World Cup matches for England, the team in these games have kept seven clean sheets and conceded just four goals whilst he was on the pitch (he was substituted before Henrik Larsson scored for Sweden in the 2006 World Cup). On 25 March 2008, Ferdinand was named captain of England for the friendly against France on 26 March 2008.

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. However, the team failed to win and the promise never had the chance to come to fruition.

Ferdinand has scored two goals for England, the first in the Second round of the 2002 World Cup match against Denmark. The other was a near post strike that beat the Russian goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev in England's Euro 2008 qualifier against Russia on 12 September 2007 at Wembley Stadium.

On 25 March 2008 it was announced that Rio would wear the captain's armband for Fabio Capello's second game in charge of the national team, ahead of John Terry, Steven Gerrard or David Beckham, who some believed would be named captain to mark his 100th cap for his country. An FA statement suggested that the decision to name Ferdinand as captain was part of Capello's plans of rotating the captaincy before naming an official captain for September's World Cup qualifiers.

TV presenter

Ferdinand celebrating a goal with teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.

In June 2006, on the day of the England national team's opening World Cup group match against Paraguay, Ferdinand made his debut appearance as a television presenter. Hosting 'Rio's World Cup Wind-Ups,' the England defender found himself in a Jeremy Beadle style role, playing tricks on his fellow England World Cup squad members including Wayne Rooney, David Beckham and Gary Neville. Several members of the squad were merked. A follow-up series was planned, entitled 'Rio's All-Star Wind-Ups', however this was cancelled following a number of filming disasters.[2]

It is also reported that Ferdinand is presently filming a documentary about the murder of schoolboy Damilola Taylor. Ferdinand grew up close to the estate where the 10-year-old was killed in 2000. The programme is the first in a series to be fronted by Ferdinand to persuade youngsters away from a life of crime.

Controversy

Missed drug test

In 2003, he failed to attend a drug test, claiming he had forgotten because he was preoccupied with moving houses and instead went shopping. The FA Disciplinary Committee chaired by Barry Bright imposed an eight month ban from January 2004 at club and international level and a £50,000 fine, meaning he would miss the rest of the league season and some of the next along with all of Euro 2004. Manchester United appealed against the verdict and sought to draw parallels to the case of Manchester City player Christian Negouai, who was fined £2,000 for missing a test. However, FIFA president Sepp Blatter stated that such comparisons are inappropriate due to differences between the two cases. Negouai had been stuck in traffic and was willing to take the test, while Ferdinand was charged with "failure or refusal" to attend the test. Both the FA and FIFA sought to have the ban increased to 12 months (half the possible maximum). In the end, the original verdict was upheld. Comparison may also be drawn with the case of Adrian Mutu, who tested positive for cocaine during a drugs test in September 2004, just nine months after Ferdinand began his suspension, yet received the lesser punishment of a seven month ban and a £20,000 fine.

John Terry replaced Ferdinand in the England side until his return on 9 October 2004 in their World Cup qualifier against Wales.

Driving offences

Rio Ferdinand, 2008

Ferdinand has committed a string of driving offences and has been banned from driving on four separate occasions. In the most recent instance he was caught driving at an average speed of 105.9 mph (170.4 km/h) and fined £1,500. Most famously he was convicted of drunk driving in 1997, forcing England manager Glenn Hoddle to drop him from a World Cup qualifier that would have been his international debut.

Personal

In 2006 in Manchester, Ferdinand's girlfriend Rebecca Ellison gave birth to their son Lorenz. In Las Vegas, Rio Ferdinand proposed to Ellison in July 2007. They are now expecting their second child.

On March 15 2008, it was reported that Rio's half brother Jeremiah had been training with the United first team under the eye of Alex Ferguson.

He currently lives in Tatton, Altrincham, England.

Before the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Ferdinand played pranks on fellow England squad members David James, Peter Crouch, Ashley Cole, Shaun Wright-Phillips (it was originally John Terry but Terry discovered the prank), David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Gary Neville. The program, in which Ferdinand set up his teammates into amusing situations without their knowledge, always started with Ferdinand introducing the teammate and ended with him saying 'You got merked'.

Honours

Team honours with Manchester United

• Barclays Premier League:

• Winner (3): 2003, 2007, 2008
• Runner-up (1): 2006

• FA Cup:

• Runner-up (2): 2005, 2007

• Carling Cup:

• Winner (1): 2006
• Runner-up (1): 2003

• FA Community Shield:

• Winner (2): 2003, 2007

• UEFA Champions League:

• Winner (1): 2008

Individual honours and awards

PFA Premier League Team of the Year:

• with Manchester United: 2004/2005, 2006/2007, 2007/2008
• with Leeds: 2001/2002

Career statistics

Last update: 19:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1995-96||rowspan="2"|West Ham United||rowspan="2"|Premier League||1||0||0||0||0||0||0||0||1||0 |- |1996-97||15||2||1||0||0||0||0||0||16||2 |- |1996-97||Bournemouth||Second Division||10||0||0||0||0||0||0||0||10||0 |- |1997-98||rowspan="4"|West Ham United||rowspan="4"|Premier League||35||5||6||0||5||0||0||0||46||5 |- |1998-99||31||0||1||0||1||0||0||0||34||0 |- |1999-00||33||0||0||0||4||0||10||0||47||0 |- |2000-01||12||0||0||0||0||0||0||0||12||0 |- |2000-01||rowspan="2"|Leeds United||rowspan="2"|Premier League||23||2||1||0||2||0||7||0||33||2 |- |2001-02||31||0||1||0||1||0||7||0||40||0 |- |2002-03||rowspan="6"|Manchester United||rowspan="6"|Premier League||28||0||3||0||4||0||11||0||46||0 |- |2003-04||20||0||0||0||0||0||6||0||26||0 |- |2004-05||31||0||5||0||1||0||5||0||42||0 |- |2005-06||37||3||2||0||5||0||8||0||52||3 |- |2006-07||33||1||7||0||0||0||9||0||49||1 |- |2007-08||34||2||4||0||0||0||10||1||48||3 Template:Football player statistics 3374||15||54||0||23||0||73||0||502||16 Template:Football player statistics 5374||15||54||0||23||0||73||0||502||16 |}

See also

• List of sportspeople sanctioned for doping offences

External links

• Rio Ferdinand – FIFA competition record (archived)
• Profile at United Online
• TheFA.com profile
• FootballDatabase profile and statistics
• Rio Ferdinand at Soccerbase
• Rio Ferdinand Player Profile from Carling