Ferdinand signed when schoolboy for West Ham United in 1992 & became a sales person streaming video player under youth step by step instruction scheme & showed huge promise, and was compared to the late Bobby Moore, the previous West Ham & England captain. He mass produced his foremost team debut in 5 May 1996 as a substitute in One-One personal draw against Sheffield Wednesday. Ferdinand earned his to the full England cap as the substitute around a friendly against Cameroon in 1998. He played for his united states at a 1998 and .

He joined FA Premier League football club Leeds United on November 2000 for £18 million, then the British record. Around August 2001, he became the captain of Leeds.

Ferdinand fulfilled his promise as a globe-class defender when you took a 2002 Globe Ventral suction cup, in which his partnership by using Sol Campbell boasts a stingiest defence when you took a tournament & he wwhen immediately hailed as the finished product following for his caring marshalling of the English defence. In 22 July 2002, Ferdinand joined another Premier League club, Manchester United, on a £30 million fee by owning the 5 season treat to get the virtually all expensive British football player inside history. He went around to win a Premier League championship by having Manchester United in his number one year. He has besides collected runners-higher palm in the League Cup (2003) and a FA Cup (2005).

A Duran Duran song "Rio" has been used inside football chants both for & against Ferdinand; as a matter of fact inside 2002, fan Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran's lead singer) promised to re-record one of a football chants whenever the team won. (It didn't.)

Rio's first cousin is previous English international striker Les Ferdinand, while his brother Anton is currently the number one selection central defender for West Ham.

Drug test controversy
Inside 2003 he failed to attend a doses end line text, claiming he experienced forgotten because he was preoccupied sustaining moving home. The FA imposed an eight month ban from either January 2004 at club & international level, meaning he would miss a rest of the league year and a bit of of the next along by using everthing of Euro 2004. Manchester United's appeals to stand a ban reduced were turned down. John Terry replaced him in the England side until his return in 9 October 2004 in their World Cup qualifier against Wales.

the Rio Ferdinand doses line 1 text saga has induced a brobdingnagian debate above how else football player obtained shamed of drug offences (failing or even missing tests) should exist as treated. One of Manchester United's reasons for appealing against the ban was that a Manchester City player had besides missed the doses line 2 text however escaped by using only the £2,000 amercement. Many seasons earliest, Ipswich midfielder Adam Tanner had been banned for simply deuce-ace months when failing the doses line 1 text. inside March 1995, Chris Armstrong experienced be the 1st Premiership football player to fail the doses end line text eventually got returned to the game within the year fallowing attending a brief rehab programme.