Anton Ferdinand

At 39 years old, Anton Ferdinand has this physical status:

Anton Julian Ferdinand (born 18 February 1985) is an English footballer who most recently played for St Mirren as a defender.

He was a product of the West Ham United academy and has also played for Queens Park Rangers, Sunderland, Bursaspor, Antalyaspor, and Reading.

He has also played for England at the under-21 level.

Personal life

Ferdinand is a Christian. He is the brother of former footballer Rio Ferdinand. He is the uncle of Les Ferdinand, a former Queens Park Rangers striker, and Kane Ferdinand, a midfielder for Maidenhead United.

Ferdinand was arrested on assault charges after a brawl at a nightclub in Ilford in October 2006. In November 2006, he was arrested. On November 12, 2007, he was charged with assault occasioning real bodily harm and affray as a result of this incident. Ferdinand had allegedly punched Emile Walker, according to reports. Ferdinand said he was afraid he was going to be robbed of his £64,000 watch and was defending himself. Ferdinand was cleared on 20 November 2007 after the jury found he was acting in self-defense.

Ferdinand is the Athlete Ambassador for the charity Right to Play.

Following an allegation of racial discrimination at Ferdinand during a match versus Queens Park Rangers, John Terry was placed under police scrutiny on November 2nd. Terry branded Ferdinand a "fucking black cunt," according to a video posted on the internet. Terry questioned Ferdinand, "Oi, Anton, do you think I called you a black cunt?" he said in reaction to the video clip. Terry was interviewed by the police on November 25, 2011. He was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with using racist words on December 21, 2011. Terry was fired by the Football Association for the second time on February 3, 2012, stating that Terry will not captain the national team until the allegations of racial abuse against him were addressed.

Terry entered a not guilty plea and was cleared of the charges on July 13th, 2012, when the trial began in July 2012. The court found that neither Ferdinand nor anyone else had heard Terry's words, but Terry himself confessed to ordering the words "fucking black cunt" and "fucking knobhead" at Ferdinand, which was confirmed by two expert lip readers from video evidence. Terry maintained that he used the words as a form of sarcasm and that he was questioning what he believed to be an allegation of bigotry from Ferdinand; no one in the interview was able to "identify whether the comment was made in a query or in what tone it was said." Chief Magistrate Riddle said that although Terry said those words in rage, "it is impossible to know exactly what they were saying at the time" and that there was no way to establish beyond a doubt that Terry had used them as an insult rather than "a challenge to what he believed to be true." Terry was therefore not guilty by the court.

Terry was charged with "abusive and/or insulting words and/or conduct" on July 27, 2012, which "included a reference to Ferdinand's ethnic origins, colour, or race. The FA had postponed the charge until after the conclusion of Terry's criminal trial. Terry denied the accusation. Terry resigned from England's national football team on the eve of the FA's hearing, saying his position had been "untenable" as a result of the discipline charge. Terry was found guilty on September 27, 2012, and was fined with a four-match suspension and a £220,000 fine.

The FA released a 63-page paper describing the administrative proceedings conducted by an Independent Regulatory Commission, finding it "inherently unlikely" that Terry's defense would have included the word "black cunt" after he threw the terms back, and that if he had wrongfully accused him of racial assault but not "inherently improbable" when he returned the terms back, but it was "inherently improbable" and "inherently The Commission found it "implausible" that he "simply repeated" them, despite robustly declining to use the terms "black cunt." His argument in court was not that he had "simply repeated" the terms, but that he had "sarcastically" repeated them; nevertheless, there was no mention of sarcasm in the Regulatory Commission's 63-page written report. The Commission found it was "fully satisfied," on the balance of probabilities, that there [were] no plausible explanation for Mr. Terry's assertion that his use of the word 'fucking black cunt' was directed at Ferdinand by way of coercion and/or inquiry. Rather, [the Commission] was] very pleased, and [was] surprised[n] on the balance of probabilities, that the offending terms had been identified by way of insult."

The FA Commission was also chastised for failing to reveal all evidence to the police, failing to disclose all evidence in a criminal trial, and for punishing Terry for an offence that had already been found in a criminal trial, which states that criminal convictions are "presumed to be correct" until "clear and convincing evidence" contradicts this. Terry's four-match suspension was compared to Luis Suárez' eight-match suspension for racially assaulting Patrice Evra (Suárez received a longer suspension for using the insults more often) and a 14-year-old schoolboy's five-match suspension for advising a referee that his name was Santa Claus.

Terry decided not to appeal the verdict and his four-match suspension on October 18, 2012. He released an apology for "the words [he] used in the game] and said that it was "not appropriate on the football field or even in any walk of life." Chelsea revealed that they had taken further discipline against Terry while keeping the information private. However, Terry and Chelsea were still facing media condemnation for failing to apologize specifically and personally to Ferdinand, although Chelsea were accused of hypocrisy and double standards by only suspending Terry and not stripping him of his captaincy if they had a "zero-tolerance" strategy to bigotry and had previously suspended a life ban to former Chelsea player Didier Drogba. Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck and chief executive Ron Gourlay described the occurrence as a "error of judgement" and "out of character" from Terry, adding that the club had "taken corrective action appropriate to the circumstances," adding that "we must not forget he was found in a court of law."

Anton Ferdinand, Football, Racism and Me, a BBC show examining racial profiling and the incident with Terry in 2011. Ferdinand was the subject of racial abuse when posting the program on Instagram, where he was sent monkey and banana emojis.

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Club career

Ferdinand started playing for West Ham in the summer of 2002 after completing a three-year deal. In August 2003, he was handed his first team debut by manager Glenn Roeder, who led Preston North End to a 2–1 victory. He went on to play in 26 games this season.

He earned his first team position in the 2004–05 season, scoring the opening goal and his first for West Ham, as West Ham defeated Watford 2–1 in the play-offs. Ferdinand was a member of the team that defeated Preston 1–0, earning them promotion back into the Premier League after a two-year absence. Ferdinand signed a three-year contract extension with the club at the end of July 2005.

Ferdinand was named Premier League Player of the Month in January 2006, following his brother Rio's selection as one of the first brothers to win the award. Ferdinand collapsed to his knees after missing the crucial point in the shoot out in the 2006 FA Cup Final against Liverpool in Cardiff. Ferdinand was a member of the Spanish champions FC Barcelona during the 2005–06 season.

Ferdinand had been fined two weeks' wages (estimated at £45,000) for lying about his whereabouts in March 2007. Ferdinand told the club he wanted to visit his grandmother when in fact, he went to South Carolina to celebrate his 22nd birthday. Charlton Athletic 0–4 in the following game. West Ham lost to Charlton Athletic 0–4. West Ham's last game was against Fulham on January 12, 2008, scoring in the 69th minute to put West Ham 2–1 ahead.

Ferdinand paid for Sunderland an undisclosed fee on a four-year contract on August 27, 2008. Roy Keane, the Sunderland boss, also said after Ferdinand's signing that he considered him a future England International. Ferdinand got off to a promising start to his Sunderland career as a result of Danny Collins' 2008-09 season, but Keane spent time with several different back four lines-ups, resulting in Ferdinand being in and out of the team. Nyron Nosworthy vacated number 6 jersey and Ferdinand was switched from number 26 to number 5 following captain Dean Whitehead's departure to Stoke City in July 2009. Ferdinand fell out of favour with new boss Steve Bruce, and his first team appearances became limited, and he was not given a squad number for the 2010-11 Premier League season. Although loan-signing John Mensah was given Ferdinand's number 5 shirt, he was later given number 29.

Sunderland accepted Queens Park Rangers' request for Ferdinand on August 31, 2011. The transfer was announced on September 1st. In a 0–0 draw with Newcastle United on Loftus Road on September 12, he made his debut on September 12th, playing the full 90 minutes alongside Danny Gabbidon. Ferdinand alleged racial abuse by Chelsea captain John Terry during the game on October 23rd, a charge that Terry denied. A formal probe into the allegations was launched by the Metropolitan Police on 1 November. Terry was accused of a racially escalated public order offence relating to the game at Loftus Road on February 1, 2012. On July 9, he entered a not guilty plea and stood trial. Terry was cleared on July 13 after a four-day trial. Terry was charged by the Football Association with "using abusive and/or insulting words and/or conduct against Ferdinand," after a court hearing, which contained a reference to colour and/or race in violation of FA Rule E3[2]]. He was found guilty, suspended for four games, and fined £220,000 in September 2012 following a four-day hearing. Ferdinand was released by Queens Park Rangers in an attempt to cut costs on August 9, 2013, the club having been relegated to the Championship.

Ferdinand joined Bursaspor on loan until the end of the season, after struggling for a first-team spot with QPR. Ferdinand played seven games for Bursaspor, helping them to fourth place in the 2012–13 Super League and a qualifying position in the 2013–14 Europa League.

Ferdinand signed for Turkish side Antalyaspor on a three-year deal on August 14, 2013. He was released by the club at the end of the 2013–14 season.

During the summer of 2014, Ferdinand was heavily associated with a transfer to Police United of the Thai Premier League. He appeared in Bangkok next week to sign for Police United on June 18, 2014. In a press conference on June 20, Teeratep Winothai and former QPR teammate Jay Bothroyd, who plays for Muangthong United, convinced him to move to Thailand. Ferdinand's transfer was cancelled and that he was in advanced talks with Championship partner Samrit Bundithamada, who was part of a group that bought a 90 percent stake in the English club in July.

Ferdinand signed a two-year contract with Reading on a free transfer on August 11, 2014. Ferdinand did not make his Reading debut until November 4, 2014. He had been sidelined with a hamstring injury, but he had played in the first half of a 3–0 home win over Rotherham United. Ferdinand will leave Reading after his deal came to an end in June 2016, according to Reading's narrator.

Ferdinand signed a one-year extension for Southend United on August 27. Ferdinand signed a new two-year deal on August 9, 2017 to remain in Southend United. He was transfer listed by the club at the end of the 2017-18 season. He left the team by mutual consent and became a free agent on August 31, 2018.

He joined Scottish Premiership side St Mirren on September 14th. Ferdinand signed a new contract extension with St Mirren in January 2019, extending his stay at the club until the end of the season. Ferdinand told Saints in May that he had departed at the end of his deal.

International career

Ferdinand made his debut in England's Under-21 side in a 3–1 victory over Ukraine on August 17th.

Ferdinand was selected to represent England in the 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship in the Netherlands and was given the number 5 shirt. Although he was recovering from a traumatic injury, he made only one appearance in the semi-finals against the hosts. After extra time, the match came to an end, and the Netherlands defeated 13-12. He scored one and missed one as the Netherlands won 13–12. This was his last U21 appearance.

Ferdinand can also play for the Republic of Ireland national team through his mother, and the St. Lucian national team through his father.

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