Anton Ferdinand exclusive interview: 'I loved playing but hated what football stood for'

[ASFN Admin]

Anton Ferdinand is describing what it was like to be booed wherever he went in the aftermath of the extraordinary series of events over 2011 and 2012 that began with him and John Terry, and an allegation of racial abuse that would come to define so many careers in the game. As a young defender with a promising career he had enjoyed the hostility of rival fans, Ferdinand explains as we chat over a Zoom call this week, but after the events of Oct 23, 2011 at Loftus Road the tenor changed. “Normally when you get booed it’s like, ‘Wicked, this is going to get me up for it even more’, I had times when I have thought, ‘Ok I am going to show you guys’. And I still had that in the games.” And then he pauses, and explains how life changed after that infamous game against Chelsea. “It was more than when I was walking in from the coach to the stadium and hearing what people were saying around that time. There were all sorts of things. Anything to do with the incident. Whether it was racial abuse from fans, the jeers and the booing was always there. It was a constant noise that I would hear. “When I was playing I was just in the game. It fires you up. There is something about when you are just walking into the stadium it hits you differently. You know? Your job hasn’t started yet. Once the job starts you’re in a different frame of mind. I was made to feel it was my fault. That is another part of the ripple effect that people don’t understand. They probably thought they were just trying to get me off my game. It harmed me and I didn’t know it at the time. I am a human being. I have feelings. I might give out the bravado but when it happens time and again it is going to make you question yourself. You ask, ‘Is it really my fault?’” As for the abuse on social media, he says it was never-ending. “When you are in your house is when you relax but when I was in my house I was still seeing and reading the abuse I was getting. It never left me.” Nine years on from the day that Terry was alleged to have called Ferdinand a “f------ black c---“ in that game between Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea, Ferdinand has at last broken his silence on the effect on him. Viewed through the lens of 2020 and the Black Lives Matter movement the dynamic around what happened over those 12 months and then in the years that followed feels different. It was a saga that brought down an England manager, saw Terry cleared in court of racially abusing Ferdinand before the Football Association eventually found him guilty on a lower burden of proof. In the tumult Ferdinand himself had been largely forgotten – until now.

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