Top 35 Rio Ferdinand Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Do you know who I am? Why, have you forgotten?”

— Rio Ferdinand

2. “If you come out with racist comments, then I believe you shouldn’t be allowed to come to a football match. Don’t be so narrow minded, you’re bigger than that.”

— Rio Ferdinand

3. “You get a bad result one week and it’s a natural reaction to go out in the next game and put it behind you and do well.”

— Rio Ferdinand

4. “Who were the best players I had ever played against? Raul, Messi, Zidane.”

— Rio Ferdinand

5. “There is a huge responsibility on all of us to get England through. It would be one of the biggest disasters in sports history if we blew it and we must make sure it does not happen.”

— Rio Ferdinand

6. “Someone now has to step up and take on the mantelpiece.”

— Rio Ferdinand

7. “Football is the most important thing in my life, but I do have a life outside football and this is one part. The TV, the music, the fashion – it all goes to make up Rio Ferdinand.”

— Rio Ferdinand

8. “It hit me like a thunderbolt!”

— Rio Ferdinand

9. “For too long now, European football authorities have not taken the problem of racism in the game seriously and refuse to acknowledge how widespread the problem is.”

— Rio Ferdinand

10. “I’ve heard people say it looks as if I don’t care and I’ve certainly read that, but the way I play is natural. I don’t think I can change it. I know I’m working as hard as the next man, even if it doesn’t always look that way.”

— Rio Ferdinand

11. “If I saw an ugly bird but she was a celebrity, she wouldn’t attract me at all.”

— Rio Ferdinand

12. “I thought I would be at United for a couple of years, maybe three or four, and then go abroad somewhere. But I just fell in love with Manchester United. I fell in love with winning, fell in love with the history of the club and being part of it was something I could never have imagined.”

— Rio Ferdinand

13. “People think we don’t give a toss about the game, but when I walked out of Windsor Park that night I felt lower than a snake’s belly. The reality is still there.”

— Rio Ferdinand

14. “If we had a starting XI that no one could argue about it wouldn’t say a lot for English football. We’d probably be on a downward spiral. It’s good that people have different ideas about who should play.”

— Rio Ferdinand

15. “I’m sure the mantelpiece of captaincy will suit Wayne.”

— Rio Ferdinand

16. “Best player? For me, it’s Paul Scholes. He’ll do ridiculous things in training like say, “You see that tree over there?” – it’ll be 40 yards away – “I’m going to hit it”. And he’ll do it. Everyone at the club considers him the best.”

— Rio Ferdinand

17. “I set myself high standards on the pitch and know I have not always lived up to them this season.”

— Rio Ferdinand

18. “If any player has a bad game its there in the back of your mind in the next game. Theres always a hangover. It is like a wounded animal in a way, as you want to get out there as quick as possible and rectify it.”

— Rio Ferdinand

19. “It was wicked meeting Nelson Mandela.”

— Rio Ferdinand

20. “So if u shorten words to get what u want in within 140 characters it makes u a twit?”

— Rio Ferdinand

21. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a senior or not, if something needs saying to a colleague it will be said.”

— Rio Ferdinand

22. “I want a new contract. I’m happy at United and I see my future here.”

— Rio Ferdinand

23. “I didn’t expect to be dropped by England.”

— Rio Ferdinand

24. “You want to come home from a tournament with a winner’s medal. That’s not the fans or the media putting us under pressure, that’s the pressure we put ourselves under.”

— Rio Ferdinand

25. “Four years ago maybe we thought we were inferior to Brazil, subconsciously we didn’t see ourselves beating them. Now we believe in ourselves, we can be on the pitch with any team in the world and think we can win.”

— Rio Ferdinand

26. “Nobody wants to be associated with failing to qualify for the World Cup finals. I cannot imagine the shame of it.”

— Rio Ferdinand

27. “No matter how much money you have or what kind of cocoon you live in, the reality is that you have lost a game of football and let England’s fans down. We are bothered.”

— Rio Ferdinand

28. “Our lives are quite boring. I spend a lot of time watching Coronation Street and Eastenders.”

— Rio Ferdinand

29. “Welbeck will be the main man and I have no doubt he will flourish. Imagine the pace Arsenal will have when everyone is fit.”

— Rio Ferdinand

30. “Most professional players are their own biggest critics. Some of the things you read in the papers that strike you as bang out of order will already have been thought by the players themselves.”

— Rio Ferdinand

31. “There are two things that really get under Gary Neville’s skin: scousers and policemen.”

— Rio Ferdinand

32. “You are always flattered when big clubs are interested in you.”

— Rio Ferdinand

33. “Our club captain Gary Neville’s been out for a year now, but Giggsy has taken up the mantelpiece.”

— Rio Ferdinand

34. “There is a hangover from a defeat like Denmark – ask any player about when they’ve had a bad game, it’s still in there somewhere in the back of your mind.”

— Rio Ferdinand

35. “At times, European football can be very slow but it speeds up in the final third.”

— Rio Ferdinand