Rio Ferdinand on how his children didn’t listen to his footballing advice

As a former England and Manchester United football player, Rio Ferdinand has an exceptional knowledge about the beautiful game.

Yet when they were younger, his two eldest sons – both talented footballers themselves – wouldn’t listen to their dad’s footballing advice, preferring to follow only their coaches’ tips and tactics.

“Even though I played, when I told them about football when they were 12, 13, 14 years old, they were like ‘What do you know?’”, he recalls.

“They were listening to their football coach – who’d never played a league game in his life or been a professional – and coming in and saying ‘But so-and-so said this dad’.”

It’s behaviour echoed up and down the land by kids who think their parents – whoever they are – know nothing, and Ferdinand stresses: “So it’s not just any old parent that thinks ‘Oh, my kids don’t listen’ – even someone who’s played at the level I played at, talking to my kids about football, it’s the same, they’ll listen to someone else.

“Because you’re the parent, they see too much of you sometimes, so they don’t want to hear it.”

Fortunately, Ferdinand, 46, says the two boys – Lorenz, 18, and Tate, 16, have started to take his footballing advice as they’ve got older, and it’s served them well – Lorenz is a goalkeeper for Brighton and Hove Albion U21s (currently on loan to Havant & Waterlooville), and Tate is an U21 defender for Brighton too.

“I do think as they mature, they actually start understanding that you’ve been through this, whether it’s education, sport or something else they’re interested in, and they do start taking a little bit more notice of you as a parent, because they see the value in what you’re saying, and that there’s normally a lot of right to it,” says Ferdinand.

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