Rio Ferdinand Reveals Why He 'Hated' Popular England Legend During His Career

Rio Ferdinand previously revealed that he ‘hated’ a fellow England international during his playing days.

Ferdinand, who represented West Ham United, Bournemouth, Leeds United, Manchester United, and QPR during his career, also made 81 appearances for England between 1997 and 2011.

And during his international career, he formed part of the team that became known as the ‘Golden Generation’.

The squad was made up of talented individual players such as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes, and Wayne Rooney, but ultimately failed to progress further than the quarter-finals in a major tournament.

Since the aforementioned players retired, they have often spoken about ‘cliques’ in the England camp, which was put down to club rivalry between players who played for clubs such as Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool.

Gerrard even recently admitted that he and Ferdinand speak more often now than they did while sharing a dressing room with the Three Lions.

But there was one ex-England star who got under Ferdinand’s skin so much that he ended up thinking, ‘I hate this guy’.

Rio Ferdinand made 81 England appearances (Credit:Getty)

The player whom Ferdinand was not the biggest fan of was former Arsenal striker Ian Wright.

The pair previously played together 20 times for West Ham but shared a pitch just once on international duty.

The duo were also opponents three times, when Wright was at Arsenal and Ferdinand played for West Ham, and it was during these games that the forward got under the defender’s skin.

The 47-year-old recently opened up about his relationship with Wright when he spoke to ESPN earlier in 2025.

When asked which opponents exchanged words with him most on the pitch, Ferdinand explained how Craig Bellamy was not shy of chatting before he added: “Ian Wright, a little bit. Ian Wright is up there. He was a hero [of mine] when I was growing up, but I didn’t like him.

Ian Wright and Rio Ferdinand have worked together on TV (Credit:Getty)

“We’ve spoken about it loads after. He was just like ‘Listen, this is the game, I’ve got to get in your head.’”

The pair have since worked in the media together and appear to have a friendly relationship.

In another previous interview on his YouTube channel, Ferdinand looked back on an incident when Wright ‘pushed’ him on the head during a match.

The former defender explained: “We had a corner and I was staying back on the halfway line marking Wrighty and as they were setting up he was just looking at me and I’m looking over him coz he’s only small, and he was looking at me trying to be a wind-up all screw-facing me and then he pushed me in my head and I pushed his hands away and said ‘What are you doing?’ and he was just laughing, and I thought, ‘I hate this guy’."