So former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand is being backed by bookmaker Betfair to take up professional boxing. Ferdinand has accepted the challenge and Betfair is going to help him get his BBBC licence before he takes up training and competition in the sport. This is a big chance for the 38 year old of course to change course in his life and earn a little money, and was ready to accept the challenge after the betting operator had approached him.
Betfair had previously backed former Olympic cyclist Victoria Pendleton in her switch to horse racing. Twelve months after taking up her challenge from Betfair to ride in a race at the Cheltenham Festival, she achieved that and finished fifth. Ferdinand is going to be trained by Team GB coach and the former WBC super-middleweight title holder Richie Woodhall.
Ferdinand has posted social media bytes of himself training in boxing and has been public in his desire to keep himself fit after his football career came to an end two years ago. If Ferdinand was to stick around the 87kg market then that would put him in the cruiserweight category. Back in 2012 former England cricketer, Andrew Flintoff launched a boxing career, which lasted just the one bout as he won on points against Richard Dawson at the Manchester Arena.
So this is a pretty bold move from Ferdinand as he could obviously getting pretty seriously hurt. Ferdinand has a clear appeal for the sport because he is friends with Anthony Joshua and posed for a Twitter picture with Joshua’s WBA, IBF and IBO belts wrapped around him. Ferdinand apparently hasn’t actually applied to the BBBC for a license yet and promoter Barry Hearn thinks that there is only a 50/50 chance that he would get it.
There would be a long, long road ahead for Ferdinand to ever get close to becoming a British champion in the ring and his ego, as well as his body is probably going to get some bruising along the way. His age may not be a huge factor in this though because current cruiserweight British champion is Ovill Mckenzie who is 37 and has held the title for three years. You are looking at around a price of 25/1 on Ferdinand getting a British Boxing title at any time.
