Rio Gavin Ferdinand OBE (born 7 November 1978) is an English former professional footballer who played as a centre-back, and is now a television pundit for TNT Sports.

[14] Ferdinand's superior footballing abilities were evident even as a child: when he was 11 years old a youth coach, David Goodwin, remarked "I'm going to call you Pelé, son, I like the way you play.

Teams vied for the young footballer's services and during his youth he trained with Charlton Athletic, Chelsea, Millwall and Queens Park Rangers.

Ferdinand was ever curious of different places and even travelled north to Middlesbrough's training ground, spending a good part of his school holidays in a bedsit just to be there.

[14] Originally scouted by Frank Lampard, Ferdinand progressed through the youth-team ranks, earning a professional contract and a place in the first-team squad in the process.

[22] Ferdinand joined Premier League club Leeds United in November 2000 for £18 million, then a British transfer record as well as becoming the world's most expensive defender.

[21] Despite an uncomfortable start to his career at Elland Road, beginning with a 3–1 defeat at Leicester City on his debut,[23] Ferdinand settled well and became an integral part of the Leeds team that reached the semi-final stage of the UEFA Champions League, scoring with a header in the quarter-final against Spain's Deportivo La Coruña.

During the 2002 FIFA World Cup, rumours began circulating that the club were in dire financial trouble and that new manager Terry Venables would be forced to part with his star defender for a substantial amount of cash.

[34] The Football Association (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 season and some of the next along with all of Euro 2004.

[35] 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.

[51] 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 Manchester United teammates.

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.

In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live he criticised FIFA's approach to tackling racism in football, stating that not enough was being done to punish those guilty of homophobic or racist abuse at matches.

[62][63] Due to a knee injury he suffered in the summer of 2010, which ruled him out of the World Cup for England, he missed all of pre-season, the Community Shield and the first four games of the 2010–11 Premier League season.

Ferdinand started in the opening Premier League match of the season at West Bromwich Albion, a game United won 2–1, but he went off with a hamstring injury after 75 minutes.

Ferdinand however recovered much quicker than initially diagnosed and returned to take a place on the bench two weeks later at Old Trafford in United's 8–2 demolition of Arsenal, although he did not play a part in the game.

[81][82] After his £18 million move to Leeds United, Ferdinand was named in the starting line-up by caretaker manager Peter Taylor in a friendly match against Italy[83] and quickly established himself as a first-choice player under Sven-Göran Eriksson.

Ferdinand played ten World Cup finals matches for England, recording clean sheets against Argentina, Nigeria and Denmark in 2002, and Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Ecuador and Portugal in 2006.

[92] On 3 October 2012, the Daily Mirror reported that Roy Hodgson had revealed to fellow passengers on the London Underground that Ferdinand would no longer be considered for England duty, despite the retirement of John Terry.

[97][98] Ferdinand was considered an atypical defensive product of English football due to his more elegant, graceful, and "continental" rather than physical style of defensive play;[99][100][101][102] in particular, he was singled out for his unique technical ability, skill, balance, and confidence on the ball, despite his height, as well as his composure in possession, distribution with either foot, and his ability to carry the ball forward or play it out from the back on the ground.

[111] Due to his ball skills, he occasionally drew criticism from pundits and his managers in his youth for taking unnecessary risks in possession, and committing mistakes, although he improved upon this aspect of the game as he matured with age and experience.

His move into the ring was sponsored by betting company Betfair, who assisted him in attempting to qualify for his British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) licence before he began training and competing.

[143] In 2000, Ferdinand briefly appeared in a sexually explicit video filmed at the Ayia Napa resort in Cyprus along with fellow English footballers Kieron Dyer and Frank Lampard.

[150] In August 2012, Ferdinand was fined £45,000 for his Twitter remarks after an Independent Regulatory Commission found him guilty of bringing the game into disrepute with an "improper" comment which included "a reference to ethnic origin, colour or race.

"[151] In October 2014, Ferdinand was again charged by the FA for using offensive language on Twitter, after referring to the mother of a critic as a "sket", a Jamaican slang word for a promiscuous female.

[153] The FA considered Ferdinand's position as a "role model" to be an aggravating factor for the penalty, in addition to it being his second Twitter offence within three years and no admission of wrongdoing.

[159] In May 2005, he was criticised by a magistrate as he received his fourth ban from driving and a fine of £1,500, after being caught by traffic police "travelling at an average of 105.9 mph (170.4 km/h) over a distance of nearly two miles" on the M6 motorway.

In a global Nike advertising campaign in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, he starred in a "Secret Tournament" commercial (branded "Scorpion KO") directed by Terry Gilliam, appearing alongside football players such as Thierry Henry, Ronaldo, Francesco Totti, Ronaldinho, Luís Figo, Fabio Cannavaro, and Hidetoshi Nakata, with former player Eric Cantona the tournament "referee".

[170] He made his first foray into the world of cinema in late 2008, financing and becoming an executive producer of Alex de Rakoff's film Dead Man Running.

[173] In conjunction with this, Ferdinand was guest editor of the February edition of the Observer Sport Monthly, providing interviews with people ranging from Gordon Brown to Usain Bolt.