Rio Ferdinand--Five Star--The Biography (9 page)

But one of Rio's biggest blows came in February 1999 when England boss Glenn Hoddle was sacked after an interview in
The Times
in which he was alleged to have said disabled people suffered because of ‘Karma'. The remarks caused public outrage and even prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair to voice disapproval.

Step forward Kevin Keegan, seen by many as the man to
save the England team and bring some more heart and soul into the job after the technical obsessions of master craftsman Hoddle. The only problem was that Keegan was no great fan of Rio Ferdinand. Having moved forward so fast under Hoddle, Rio now faced a new battle to try and establish himself in the England team under a new boss. It wasn't going to be easy.

I
n July 1999 the rumour mill connecting Rio to a host of big football clubs started up all over again. A lot of the speculation had been sparked by protracted negotiations between Rio and West Ham about an additional clause in his contract that gave him an automatic 10 per cent cut of any future transfer fee. Rio’s agent Pini Zahavi knew only too well that West Ham would one day sell Rio and the player wanted to be certain he’d get his cut of the wedge. West Ham were playing hardball presumably because they wanted to get maximum return from their investment.

So it was no surprise when Roma voiced an interest in Rio. A party of Italians, headed by the club’s chairman, Franco Sensi, were rumoured to be on the way to London to start negotiations. But Rio knew that football history was littered with examples of professionals lured by the promise
of big bucks in Italy who’d then flopped under the weight of expectation.

Publicity about Roma’s interest had a ripple effect among other big European clubs. Real Madrid were reported to be about to make another £12-million bid, and others were waiting and watching developments. Meanwhile West Ham’s chairman, Terence Brown, continued to refuse Rio’s demand for 10 per cent of any future transfer deals.

Rio himself fuelled some of the speculation about his possible departure to Italy by joining a radio interview with his Hammers colleague Paolo Di Canio at West Ham’s training ground. Taking the microphone from his teammate, he told Italian listeners: ‘I know the Olympic Stadium in Rome and I know it is a beautiful city. Roma fans are exceptional. I hope we will see each other soon …’

The following day the national newspapers swarmed around Rio wanting to know if he was about to depart for Italy. He insisted on playing down the stunt by talking about his admiration for his talented young colleague Joe Cole, who was about to break into the West Ham first team.

Despite Kevin Keegan’s reservations about Rio’s footballing talents, Rio re-emerged as a shock candidate for a place in the England team to face Scotland in the European Championship 2000 qualifier at Wembley on 17 November 1999. He only made it on to the subs’ bench in the end, but at least Keegan considered him, which was encouraging after the little contact there had been between Rio and the new England manager. England lost the game 1–0 but got through to the European Championship after thrashing the Scots at Hampden Park in the first leg.

A couple of weeks later, on 30 November, Rio was celebrating Joe Cole’s winner in a dramatic Worthington
Cup tie against Birmingham when he was jostled by a steward on the edge of the pitch. ‘The steward kept on shouting and then I asked him what his problem was and he pushed me. I couldn’t believe he acted the way he did but that’s the sort of thing you have to put up with sometimes.’ The scuffle between player and club official seemed to show another side to Rio’s so-far exemplary character on the football pitch. Was the pressure of not being an England regular getting to him?

With his driving licence now back in his wallet and a luxurious brand-new penthouse flat in London’s upmarket Docklands, it wasn’t surprising that Rio’s skills off the field started to get tongues wagging. In the autumn of 1999 he went on a series of dates with blonde Spice Girl Emma Bunton. The couple became very close and were soon speaking on the phone virtually every day. Emma insisted the romance was not yet fully developed but admitted: ‘I am young, free and single and having fun. I’ve met him a few times as we share the same friends – he’s a nice guy.’

Rio and Emma were spotted out in London on at least half a dozen occasions and their friendship was said to be an open secret at West Ham, where Rio’s teammates had been ribbing him about his famous new girlfriend, especially since he’d always said he couldn’t handle dating a pop star. The pair had first met during a visit to London’s Emporium nightclub in mid-August with mutual pals Mel B, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and his wife Victoria, aka Posh Spice. They hit if off immediately. But Emma – who’d only just split from her long-time love Jade from the pop group Damage – told Rio they should take the relationship one step at a time. Rio’s mum Janice proudly told one journalist at the time: ‘They seem made for each other.’

Rio was more reluctant to comment on the friendship. All he would tell friends was: ‘I do know Emma and she’s a nice girl. We get on well.’

Many of Rio’s friends insisted he was smitten by Baby Spice and that the couple had even spent a number of romantic evenings at his new flat. Inevitably, many compared the relationship with Posh and Becks. Emma had already let it be known she wanted to settle down and have children in the near future.

But Rio was soon having problems coping with Emma’s fame. ‘Rio just couldn’t handle all the attention she got,’ one of his oldest friends said. ‘Rio comes from a family where the mother is the one who runs things. In some ways, he felt that his girlfriend’s role was to keep out of spotlight, not attract even more attention than he did!’

It seemed Rio was right about his own character: he just didn’t suit dating a fellow celebrity. Another old pal in Peckham commented: ‘Rio loves the attention – that’s why he loves the fans at all the games – but he’s not so happy when the person he’s with gets more attention than him.’

Naturally, Janice had very strong opinions about the sort of girl who might persuade her son to settle down. ‘I think the person he will end up with will be a beautiful, strong-minded woman who loves clothes, music and food. But it will be a while until he settles down – he’s still very focused on his career.’

Rio and Emma eventually drifted apart, but it was becoming clear that all Rio’s public declarations about leading a quiet private life were a little hollow. He made frequent appearances in the gossip columns as well as on the sports pages. Rio was providing ammunition for those critics who claimed the 20-year-old had been seduced by his new-found celebrity status to the detriment of his game.
After his whirlwind romance with Baby Spice, he was now under a virtually non-stop spotlight. He needed to learn to watch his step.

The football critics began circling Rio because he’d endured a torrid time on the pitch over a six-week period in the autumn of 1999 thanks to a series of uncharacteristic errors while on duty for West Ham. There was a dreadful mistake at Anfield which allowed Liverpool to snatch victory. That was preceded by numerous blunders against Sunderland, Leicester, Aston Villa and, in Europe, against the French side Metz, all of which raised serious doubts about Rio’s reputed £12-million price tag.

Rio was honest enough with himself to know he had been suffering and told one newspaper: ‘If I knew what was going wrong I wouldn’t be making the mistakes. Everyone has bad games but it’s how you respond to those setbacks that counts.’

Was Rio yet the finished article? At both club and country level he still quite frequently gave the ball away, leaving himself marooned and his defence completely wrongfooted. And Kevin Keegan continued to believe he was not yet ready for a regular spot in his England line-up.

In early 2000 Rio linked up with his West Ham mate Frank Lampard to play for the U-21 side for the first time in more than two years. The match was against Yugoslavia in a play-off for the chance to be at that summer’s U-21 European Championship. Rio shrugged off his apparent ‘demotion’ by Keegan to prove he was still a very talented footballer, especially at that level, as England won 3–0.

Rio’s new riches had given him a Jaguar XK8, designer clothes and a penchant for London nightclubs. But he still
believed his football was heading in the right direction and he refused to let the ‘Keegan problem’ make him downcast. He even saw his return to the U-21 team as the chance to confound his critics and prove he was still worthy of a place in Keegan’s senior squad for Euro 2000.

Behind the scenes, though, Rio was growing restless about something else – the lack of silverware at West Ham. He admitted to one reporter: ‘I do get a bit jealous when I see others challenging for trophies and I’ve made no secret that I want to move abroad one day to develop as a footballer and broaden my horizons as a person.’

But it also seemed that Rio still hadn’t learned all his lessons away from the pitch. In March 2000 he was accused of booting a girlfriend called Shera Rosun out of his home and telling her to get an abortion. Perhaps not surprisingly, Shera decided to reveal all to the
News of the World
and accused Rio of ‘behaving just like a kid. I should have known he could never cope with a baby.’

Shera, 20, claimed that when she rang Rio to tell him she was pregnant there was just silence from the other end of the phone line. ‘I wanted him to say everything would be alright. But he told me he was busy and to ring later. Then he stopped returning my calls.’

When Shera finally got through to Rio for a proper conversation, he told her: ‘I don’t want no kids, do you know what I mean? My mum would kill my ass.’ Rio’s reference to Janice says it all: his mother was never far from his mind.

Rio’s personal habits during his fling with Shera provided a fascinating insight into the 20-year-old West Ham star. Shera claimed Rio constantly gorged himself with sweets and wine gums before all their sex sessions on his waterbed. She implied he was nothing more than a big kid. And after sex, ‘Rio stopped cuddling me because he said he couldn’t
sleep like that. He told me not to laugh at him, then he curled his knees up to his chest and started to suck his thumb. He was in a foetal position like a baby. He said he always slept like that.’

Shera fell for Rio when she was introduced to him at a London nightclub. ‘He said he wanted to take me out for a meal, so I gave him my number because he seemed really nice.’ Rio called her the next day. ‘He had to do a radio interview, so I didn’t meet him until 10.30 pm. It was too late to go to a restaurant, so we went back to his flat.’

Once inside the apartment Rio scoffed handfuls of sweets and then put on a video called
Kiss the Girls.
‘We then sat there eating Minstrels. It wasn’t very romantic,’ explained Shera. ‘I’d had a few drinks, so I couldn’t drive home and Rio joked that I could either sleep in the bathroom or with him on the waterbed. I thought that sounded great, but he’d put too much water in it because he didn’t like it moving around. It was rock solid and not very comfortable. I wasn’t planning to make love with him, but he was really nice and I thought, What the hell! I didn’t want it to be just a one-night stand and he gave me the impression it meant more to him than that. There are not many guys who can get me into bed on the first date, but I was putty in his hands.’

And despite his childish habits, romeo Rio turned out to be a gladiator between the sheets. Shera revealed: ‘When we made love I have to admit it was great. Rio has a lovely bottom. It went on for hours and we made love four times. Then he cuddled me and told me I had a nice figure. He said he’d had enough of women with fake boobs and he loved mine because they are real.’

That’s when Rio turned over and started sucking his thumb. ‘It looked cute, but it was then I realised he was just a little boy.’

Shortly after their first romp, Rio invited Shera back to his flat again. This time he encouraged her to use the sauna and whirlpool bath. ‘We watched
Four Weddings and a Funeral
and ate Minstrels again. I stayed the night and cuddled, but I wouldn’t let him make love to me. I wanted to prove to myself he really liked me and wasn’t just after sex. He slept in his foetal position again. The next morning we were both in a rush and he said he would call, but he never did. I phoned his mobile several times but just kept getting his message service.’

Weeks later Shera, from Slough, in Berkshire, found out she was pregnant. ‘When he finally did contact me it was to find out if I’d made an appointment at the abortion clinic yet.’

In that call, a distraught Shera asked Rio: ‘You want me to have an abortion then, do you?’

Rio replied: ‘Yeah. So what are you going to do? Are you going to have one?’

‘I don’t know. What if I want to keep it?’ asked Shera.

‘What d’you mean, if you want to keep it?’ Then Rio paused. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t be happy because I don’t want no kids. I suppose you want me to keep it as well? I wouldn’t be happy.’

Shera explained at the time: ‘My mother is pretty strict. She threatened to kick me out of the house if I keep the baby. I feel sick because I’m pregnant at 20 and I’m going to be on my own. I didn’t expect Rio to want to play happy families, but he shouldn’t just shrug me off. Now I don’t know how I can face the future. I just wish I had never met him.’

Rio’s trust in women was badly shaken by his whirlwind affair with airport worker Shera, which not only ended up in the
News of the World
but also provoked a lot of banter from his teammates at West Ham.

Then, completely out of the blue, eccentric Hammers star Paolo Di Canio said in a newspaper interview that Rio wasn’t yet good enough to play for England. Rio later explained: ‘I was surprised by what Paolo said, but I bear no grudge towards him. The simple truth is Paolo is just being Paolo – everybody at the club has a good laugh about him. He’s always ready to say things and I guess he always will.’

But a number of Premiership and European clubs were not in agreement with Di Canio. Newspapers were soon reporting that Leeds United were now leading the chase for Rio’s talented services.

On 29 April 2000 Harry Redknapp gave his first public response to a reported approach by Leeds: ‘David O’Leary has £20 million to spend in the summer and he wants to give me £7.5 million for Rio Ferdinand. But the day we sell Rio and our other young players is the day when this club starts to die. People talk about Sol Campbell, but Rio is a better player than him. He has made a few mistakes, but he is such a special player. He’ll be an international for the next 10 years. I have no doubt. And he should certainly be part of England’s European Championship squad.’