Rio Ferdinand interview: 'If my ban is the benchmark, Malky Mackay better beware...'

Rio Ferdinand returns from his three-game suspension today still perplexed at the severity of his punishment. The Queen's Park Rangers defender opens up to Sam Wallace about being made an example of by the FA, Mackay and Whelan at Wigan and why the Rooney Rule wouldn’t work in England

“That question took me straight back to when I was a kid,” Ferdinand says later as we sit in the staff room to reflect on his 18 years in professional football. “I would go to Middlesbrough or Norwich, even West Ham – I had never been to east London before. When you go there people say ‘Where are you from?’ And you mention Peckham – and people say, ‘Woah, flipping heck’. People take exception straight away.”
The answer he gave the boys was clear. Ferdinand said that it was up to them to change the way they presented themselves and that it was not a betrayal of their roots to do so. “I would have arguments with my mates,” he says. “They would say: ‘I heard so-and-so speaking the other day and he talked like an idiot, like he is posh’. I said: ‘But if he wants to get a job he is going to have to adapt’.”
Needless to say, it is a rapt audience that Ferdinand addresses, having participated with the boys in an hour of touch rugby exercises, run by the Dallaglio Foundation. The foundation is backed by BT Sport’s charitable initiative, The Supporters Club, which itself is launching a Christmas volunteering campaign #myextratime. Ferdinand is one of the elder statesmen of the game, with six Premier League titles, a Champions League, 81 England caps and a starring role in the story of the modern English game.

Malky Mackay has been given the Wigan job but the FA is still investigating alleged sexist and racist text messages sent by him It is never dull where Ferdinand is concerned. He has a new autobiography out, #2sides, a good read which has, among other things, the most insightful analysis yet of David Moyes’ nine months at Manchester United. There are his 5.9 million Twitter followers and there is always the controversy. This weekend, Ferdinand comes back for Queen’s Park Rangers from a three-game suspension imposed by the Football Association, the first for a comment posted on Twitter.
We are back at that point again about adapting language for different situations. Ferdinand is clear that he has not said he was right to use the slang “sket” – a derogatory term for a woman – in a reply to a critical tweet, it was just that the response from the FA has been so draconian.
“They have many, many bigger issues going on that needed a lot more attention than my ban. I have got used to being made an example over the years when it comes to the FA. I didn’t speak to one person who said they agreed with the sanctions – and I never said I was right. I just think the severity of the ban and everything else to do with it was crazy. There was no realism with what they did. Someone has got to be made an example and the FA thinks it is good to make me that guy. I am used to it now.”
He hopes to be in the side against Leicester City, with QPR bottom of the league and in desperate need of a win. As a United player he says he barely looked at the league table before Christmas but now finds himself immersed in the forthcoming fixtures.