#2Sides: My Autobiography

by Rio Ferdinand

  Jamie persuaded me to join him in his company where all my interests and needs would be under one roof. He’d look after all that but at the same time he’d make me more business-minded and help me educate myself so I would never again leave my financial affairs in the hands of other people. A lot of footballers simply take advice from their financial advisers and sign on the dotted line when someone says ‘Don’t worry, it’s a great investment.’ I’ve made a couple of bad calls on deals here and there, but that’s life. I am now involved from start to finish in everything I do because that’s the way I wanted. And I’m grateful to Jamie for helping me to get to that point. He’s someone I liked and trusted. We’ve never looked back and I’m now an ambassador for his company, New Era.

  Jamie has a unique take on some of the problems that footballers face. I’ll let him explain in his own words:

  Football is such an unusual sport. There’s no other industry in the world where your earnings can fluctuate so wildly. Someone in a normal job might be earning £20,000 a year, then get an upturn and earn £26,000. That’s manageable. But as a footballer you can be playing in the Premier League earning £60,000 a week and you can’t see past the diamonds and the cars and the adulation. Suddenly, you get an injury, and even though you are still doing exactly the same job you can find yourself on £5,000 a week. But the lifestyle stays the same and you’ve suddenly got mortgages for more than you’re earning. How do you adapt? Your skills haven’t changed; you are still in the same industry and you can still be playing in front of tens of thousands of fans. So how do you mange that downturn in wages? Then at the age of 35 you have to retire and you’re unemployed. Nothing in your experience prepares you for that.

  It’s no wonder so many footballers have gone bankrupt. There’ll be many more in future, too. Players think they will stay young and that football is going to be there forever. On the 28th of every month money goes in, and then comes the day when no money goes in. Suddenly all those people who’ve wanted to be your friend, who’ve been begging you for tickets for the last ten years, don’t even pick the phone up. They’ve moved onto some new star. Down the pub it goes from ‘What are you having?’ to having to buy your own drink. Around the age of 37 can be the most difficult. You look at yourself in the mirror and think: ‘Fuck! What has happened to me? Five years ago I was on TV and in the papers every week and being loved by 40,000 people in the stadium and now no one even knows who I am.’

  Worst of all, you have no support network. I’ve known players who earned £30,000 to £40,000 a week for ten years and at the age of 40 they’re struggling to put a pair of trainers on their kids’ feet. An awful lot of ex-players suffer from depression or get divorced; they can’t come to terms with the fact that the adulation isn’t there anymore. So a lot of times they turn to substitutes to fill the gap in their lives where football used to be. It could be through gambling or drugs, or drinking – it happens to a lot of players and it’s not their fault. They try these fixes because that’s the only way they can get that slightly replicates the feeling of the 2.45pm adrenaline buzz in the dressing room before a game.

  Ex-players need help and it should be coming from different sources. It should be the PFA, agents and ex-players who’ve been through difficult times who need to be coming back into football not just as pundits or managers but running seminars, and talking about life skills and how to deal with life after football. Agents also need to take on a slightly different role: at the end of the day, the job of every agent is to get their player from ‘A’ to ‘B’ and get the maximum amount of money they can in every particular deal. OK, but agents should also be looking out for their players in a more holistic way. Too many agents basically lose interest when the earning potential goes down in a player’s 30s then tails off completely. I would say that about 90 per cent of footballers don’t even have a relationship with their agent by the time they hit 40 because the agents are busy with the new kids on the block. And often by then there’s some bitterness or lack of communication. But that’s exactly the age when ex-players need help the most. Money is short and they really need a lot of support and guidance.

  To be fair, when you’re a young player and everything is going your way, and somebody like me comes along and tries to warn you about the future, you don’t want to hear it. But sometimes the players I tried to sit down with at the age of 29 or 30 come on the phone asking for help when they are 35. And at that point it’s sometimes too late. Footballers need to understand that the game is a business. It’s just a period of their life and around the age of 30 they need to start to prepare, and get people around them to help them develop new interests, make good investments, create business opportunities and new challenges so the minute they call it a day and retire they can thrust themselves into that. Being focused on your new life stops depression kicking in. Rio is a brilliant example of how to do this.

  When I bumped into him again he was in his pomp, winning titles, playing in World Cups. Everyone knew about his footballing ability but I saw another side to him and felt he was misunderstood. He was seen as unapproachable, a stereotypical footballer from the streets who’d made a lot of money and wasn’t prepared to give anything back. I knew that wasn’t true. He wanted to do a lot of things in the community; he wanted to be understood.

  You can see now how he’s developed in the seven or eight years since then! I’ve seen him become a Dad with three little children; he’s got married; I also saw him get a lot more serious in his approach to football.

  In terms of preparation for life after football I think Rio is as happy as he could be when a lot of other footballers in his position are struggling. But he doesn’t just want to make sure that he’s happy in himself; he wants to work with me to raise this awareness among young players and help others. The way he sees it, if you stay strong and you believe in the people around you, collectively, you can achieve anything you want.

  World Cup 2014

  Happy Mondays

  And Tuesdays

  And Wednesdays …

  Brazil

  Brazil was my first World Cup as a fan rather than a player but I only got to see one game in person, Bosnia-Herzegovina v. Argentina. All the rest I watched on TV like most people! Pretty crazy, eh? But I was working for the BBC so I couldn’t pick and choose. At the Maracanã, as soon as the national anthems started, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and all I could think of was, ‘I’d love to be playing!’ The brilliant Argentina supporters were going mad and the atmosphere was unforgettable. But then all the South Americans were brilliant. Most nights I would walk along the Copacabana with my friend Jamie, just people-watching. I’d put my cap on and keep walking, hoping not to get recognised because I just wanted to drink in the occasion. The best-supported teams were Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia, and their campervans were in all of the side and back streets, covered with flags. Fans had driven across the continent and every night were out partying, drinking and having sing-offs against each other.

  The two most memorable moments of the tournament itself were the two biggest shocks: Spain getting hammered 5–1 by the Dutch in the first round, and Brazil collapsing 7–1 to Germany in the semi-final. Holland–Spain was the end of one era. Brazil–Germany, was the beginning of another. It was just crazy. Both times, in the studio, we just kept looking at each and saying, ‘Are we really witnessing this?’ I’d spoken to Ruud Gullit a couple of nights before the first game and, like everyone, he said Holland had no chance as their defence wasn’t good enough. Then they went out and put on a performance like that! You just thought, ‘Wow!’ And then something even more astonishing happened. The host nation got destroyed in their own backyard. It was just surreal. Every time Brazil played a match the atmosphere in Rio was extraordinary. Up in the favelas on the mountains above Copacabana there would be gunshots and fireworks. Everyone was so excited. After the 7–1, I went out into the city expecting mayhem. But it was just very quiet and there was a sense of shock. All
the people walking around seemed to be thinking: ‘Did we really just see that? … We’re going to wake up tomorrow … this can’t be true.’

  The two teams I enjoyed watching the most were Chile and Colombia. I especially liked the thrustful way Chile played. As soon as they won the ball, they went at their opponents. Meanwhile, Colombia had James Rodríguez, who I reckon is going to be the best player in the world within two or three years. He is the heir to the throne of Ronaldo and Messi and was just electrifying. Every time he got the ball he was looking to hurt the opposition with through balls, or making runs, committing people, shooting, setting up chances. And he’s left-footed! Somehow, everything just looks better when you’re left-footed. I said before the tournament that he’d be one to watch but I didn’t expect him to be quite as good as he was. But other players you wanted to be brilliant never really rose to the occasion. Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar didn’t quite do what we hoped they would do. But Thomas Müller was brilliant, as was the whole German team. Schweinsteiger, Kroos and Khedira were great and Neuer, their goalkeeper, was just unbelievable. I liked Cuadrado the right-midfielder for Colombia and Alexis Sánchez for Chile as well: exciting players doing exciting things for their countries.

  Something else made a big impression on me. After I visited the England team following the Italy game, I went to the Dutch squad’s hotel. The difference was so telling! The English had just lost so obviously they were a bit dejected. It’s natural. Then I went to the Dutch team where I met Robin van Persie. Holland had just beaten Spain and everyone was smiling and Robin was laughing his head off, telling jokes, and talking about Louis van Gaal. He was saying, ‘He tells us before the game, “this is how the game is going to play out” … and everything happens exactly as he predicts. He didn’t say we were going to score five goals but he did tell us how we were going to win.’ Robin was still bubbling after his amazing flying header goal. I asked him how he’d done it because normally you’d expect the striker to take a touch in that situation. He said it was pure instinct.

  On the way back to our hotel I said to Jamie: ‘That team is going to go deep in this tournament. They believe in the manager, in his ideas and philosophy. If he tells them the grass is blue, the grass is blue. If he tells them the sky is green, the sky is flipping green. They’re going everywhere with him!’ Another aspect that impressed me was that Van Gaal treated his players as grown-ups. One evening we were in a bar at the hotel with Fabio Cannavaro, waiting for Christian Vieri to come along. All of a sudden almost the entire Dutch team turn up and start chilling in this bar. I sat down next to Sneijder and said ‘What’s going on? Are you allowed in here?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, the manager said to go. As long as we’re back in the hotel by 11, it’s fine.’ Me and Jamie just looked at each other and started laughing. Our players are treated like complete babies. It doesn’t really matter whether that’s because people have made mistakes in the past, or the manager doesn’t trust the players or he doesn’t trust the media who would make a story of it. I don’t think the Dutch media even mentioned it. Their players looked free and relaxed: ‘Yeah, we’re out and we’ll be back in a little while. It doesn’t matter. We’re not doing anything crazy.’ I started thinking: this lot have got it sorted, tactically, technically and there’s a great spirit in the team.

  One of the best things about being at the tournament was the chance to meet legends like George Weah, Bakero, Pelé and Valderrama. And I loved going out for drinks and dinner with guys I’d played against over the years like Fabio Cannavaro, Christian Vieri, Clarence Seedorf and Thierry Henry. There was no competitive edge to them. We just chilled and relaxed and talked about good old times and the future of football. One conversation with Christian Vieri made a particular impression. He was known as a bit of a playboy in his time and he lives in Miami now. He said: ‘I love my life now but I finished playing a year or two too early.’ His advice to me was: play as long as you can, play till you feel you physically can’t do it anymore. Others said the same thing. Shearer, Lineker, Keown and Seedorf said ‘Just keep playing.’ Ruud Gullit surprised me by telling me he had his most enjoyable time at the end of his career at Chelsea, who weren’t a top team at the time. After his years in Italy the expectations and the pressure came off when he moved to London, and he just loved it there. He also put me right about Fabio Capello. I asked what it was like to play in that fantastic Milan team of the late 1980s and early 1990s and he said: ‘But Capello didn’t build that team – he inherited it from Arrigo Sacchi.’ If I’d known that when he was England manager I would’ve been less disappointed.

  Working for the BBC produced some surprises as well – all good ones. Going in, I hadn’t realised just how good Gary Lineker was. But when I saw him up close everything about him, from the way he conducted himself, to the ad-libbing and writing his own scripts was just so impressive. A lot of what he does is structured, and he’s got a good backup team, but he does a lot of it off the cuff and manages everything brilliantly. He’s made the transition from being a top footballer to become a top man in another field. A lot of people don’t know him as Gary Lineker the footballer, but as Gary Lineker, Match of the Day man, and Gary Lineker, Walker’s Crisps man.

  I already knew some of the other old players I was working with. I’d played with or against Danny Murphy, Phil Neville and Martin Keown. Robbie Savage used to live near me. I knew Clarence Seedorf and Thierry Henry as well. But the biggest surprise was Alan Shearer. I’d played with him about ten or 15 times for England, but I’d never had a conversation with him. He was the captain but it was Tony Adams who came over and went, ‘Hope you’re all right and if you need anything, come and see me.’ I always found Alan Shearer a bit cold. I don’t know what to expect, but he was one of the nicest people. He made me feel so welcome. He was relaxed and at ease with himself. We had a good few nights out, a good few beers. If I needed any help or advice, he was there, and I felt we worked well on TV together. In fact, the dynamics in the studio worked really well with everyone. The BBC people made it very comfortable for me. Alan Hansen was great too. Everyone knows how brilliant he’s been but within the BBC walls, his foibles are famous too: he falls asleep quite a lot and people are always taking the mick out of him – but he gives as good as he gets.

  It was his last tournament, so there was a party after the final, and everyone had to do a little piece to camera about him. I said: ‘What a fantastic player, really good on the ball, silky, started attacks at the back, won loads, was a great leader, well-liked by his teammates, what a fantastic player, a legend … That’s me. Now let’s talk about Alan Hansen.’ That got a nice little chuckle. Then we were having a few drinks in the hotel – until the barman shut the bar! So we all went down to one of the little shacks on the beach which sell alcohol and melon. There must have been about 30 or 40 BBC people and locals and there was a beat system, so I got out my Ipad and found myself DJ’ing for Alan Hansen’s Match of the Day farewell party on the Copacabana! A nice bit of Oasis, Happy Mondays, Bob Marley, and everyone was singing and dancing along. It was brilliant.

  I’d worked as a pundit before, for BT Sport, but this was the biggest football tournament of all. The whole nation was watching and football history was being made. But I never allowed myself to think like that. I didn’t think ’14 or 15 million people are watching.’ I didn’t let that get into my head. Instead, I treated it like I was sitting and talking as I would to my mates in the pub or at home. I didn’t get nervous, but I approached each commentary as professionally as I would a match I was playing in. One crucial aspect was research. If you don’t do your preparation, if you don’t find out everything you can about teams, players and coaches, you leave yourself wide open. There’s a lot more to the whole process than meets the eye of the viewer. Every morning at breakfast one of the directors of the show came to meet me and discussed the running order of the show, which players would I like to profile and so on. The whole thing was a good education, and the feedback I’ve had for my
match-day work and for the Rio in Rio documentary I made was all very positive.

  Early in the tournament I was doing a game every day, but once the group games were over and the number of games decreased all of a sudden you’re getting a day off here and there. That’s when I got a chance to indulge a bit on the beach and go off and do the documentary to see what life is like in the favelas. We went into Santa Marta and it was an eye-opener to see how ordinary people there live. They’re poor and there are open sewers down the little alleyways. But the people there feel strongly about the government’s ‘resettlement’ plans. They were saying: ‘Leave us alone. We don’t want anything. We understand poverty. We know how to get along. We’re happy. If you can give us infrastructure, fantastic. But if not, leave us alone. Don’t come in and tear our favelas apart. We live here. We have history here.’ These people have lived in these places for years and years with their families. And they are being taken out of there for no reason I can see other than money. The real estate there is the best real estate in the city. The favelas are up in the mountains so they have beautiful views over the sea. The people there were telling me the government has broken its promises. Money is not being spent on transport systems, hospitals and education for the kids. So where is it going? That’s why they are upset. The process underway is called ‘pacification’. The military will go in and control the drug barons and ‘pacify’ the favela. Sometimes the authorities go in and basically ransack the favela, take over homes and move the people to a different part of the city. Some of these people work nearby in the centre of Rio, and they’re being moved to three or four hours away. It’s ridiculous. They’re much worse off after they are moved away from friends and family. Imagine someone coming into your front room and saying, ‘Right, you got a week to get out, and by the way, where you’re going is worse than here.’