Page 46 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

We also thought Rio was always preparing for his life after football, which was not unreasonable. I
did much the same by taking my coaching badges. That took me four years. So I also prepared for the
second half of my life, after playing, but not by meeting P Diddy. There is that moment when a player
asks himself what he is going to do, because stopping is such a void. One minute you’re playing in

European finals, FA Cup finals, winning championships, then it all fades to nothing. How to cope
with that is a challenge all footballers face. Fame offers no immunity from the emotional comedown.
The second half is not as exciting, so how do you re-create it? How do you replace the thrill of sitting
in that dressing room ten minutes before the kick-off of a game that is going to determine who wins the
League?
By the end of my time, Rio had developed back problems. We picked out the goal we conceded to
City’s Craig Bellamy in the Manchester derby of 2009 as an example of him working under a physical

handicap. Two years previously he would have taken the ball off Bellamy and thrown him aside.
Another was the Fernando Torres goal at Liverpool, when Torres beat him for speed and leaned on
him one-on-one in the penalty box in front of the Kop.
We analysed that with him in a DVD review. Rio stepped up to play Torres offside and a year
previously would have recovered from that error to dispossess him. But in this instance he was
fighting to get back to deal with the threat and Torres shouldered him out of the road and blasted it

into the net. Nobody did that to Rio. It told you the back injury was not only causing him pain, but also
adversely affecting his balance.
Rio always cruised. He never had to fight to run. After the long lay-off that caused him to miss most
of the winter, he came back brilliantly in training, and excelled against City in the semi-final second
leg in 2009 at Old Trafford after almost three months out.
In his autumn years I had to tell him to change his game to take account of age and what it does to
all of us. The years catch up with you. I told him, publicly and privately, that he needed to step back a

yard or two to give himself a chance against strikers. Five years previously it had been lollipop stuff.
With his change of pace he’d rob a centre-forward just when the striker thought he was in business.
He could no longer do that. He needed to be on the scene before the crime could happen.
He was fine with my analysis. He wasn’t insulted. I was simply explaining the changes in his body.
And he had a great season in 2011–12, marred only, for him, by his omission from the England Euro
2012 squad. When Roy Hodgson asked my opinion about whether Rio could work with John Terry I

replied, ‘Ask him. Ask Rio about their relationship,’ because I couldn’t really give him an answer.
Another minor incident with him was when he refused to wear a Kick It Out T-shirt in 2012–13
after I thought we had all agreed to publicly back the campaign. It was a lack of communication. When
he decided to boycott the Kick It Out T-shirt, Rio should have come to me, because he knew it was on
the cards for us all to wear them. I know he had an issue over Anton, his brother, and John Terry but I
didn’t anticipate it spilling over in that way. Terry, of course, was punished by the FA for using
racially abusive language against Anton in a game between QPR and Chelsea at Loftus Road.

I was in my office when Mark Halsey came in to tell me Rio was not wearing the Kick It Out
jersey. I found Albert, our kit man, and instructed him to tell Rio to put the garment on.
The word came back that Rio would not be putting it on.
When I confronted him he said nothing, but after the game came in to explain that he felt the PFA
were not doing enough to fight racism. My position was that by not wearing the T-shirt, he wasn’t
supporting the anti-racism cause. If he had a problem with the PFA he should, I felt, take that up with

them. I thought it was divisive not to wear the T-shirt.
My view on racism is that I really don’t comprehend how anyone could hate anyone else on the