Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard were embroiled in a huge scandal along with an England team-mate after being left out of a Three Lions squad
Manchester United and England legend Rio Ferdinand was caught up in his fair share of controversy during his playing career.
Infamously, the former defender, who turned 47 on Friday, November 7, was banned from playing for eight months and fined £50,000 by the FA, after missing a drugs test in September 2003. He was out of action from January until September 2004, causing him to miss half a Premier League season, United’s FA Cup triumph that year, and Euro 2004 with England.
The ex-centre-back had also missed out on the previous Euros, for less controversial reasons. He along with Three Lions team-mates Frank Lampard and Kieron Dyer were among those who missed out on Kevin Keegan’s squad for Euro 2000. Yet what the three of them got up to in Cyprus in the aftermath of that disappointment led to a scandal that haunted him for years to come.
The trio decided to embark on a booze-fuelled holiday to Ayia Napa, which saw them splashed across the pages of national newspapers after a bonking spree caught on camera and then leaked to the press.
Dyer, 46, now a coach at Chesterfield, once recounted the details of that trip to the south coast of Cyprus in a Daily Mail column. He said: “It felt like every Premier League player who hadn’t made the Euros was in Ayia Napa that summer.”
Ferdinand and Lampard, 47, now manager of Coventry City, were both still on the books at West Ham at the time, though bigger transfers to Leeds and Chelsea respectively beckoned. Dyer, meanwhile, had just finished his first season in the Premier League with Newcastle.
All three players were 21 when Euro 2000 kicked off, and Dyer remembered the combination of sun, sea and newfound fame had explicit consequences: “We could have slept with three girls a day if we wanted to.”
According to Dyer, a camcorder was brought along by Ferdinand’s friends before some of the more “intimate” moments of the trip were captured.
He said one of Ferdinand’s pals came into the room and began filming without his consent.
Dyer said: “When we realised, I jumped off the girl and told the guy to get lost. It was completely wrong. The girl was mortified. I apologised profusely and took her to get a taxi back to her hotel.”
But he added another group of women consented to being filmed having sex after “Rio and Frank and a couple of others took some girls back to their room”.
The camcorder purportedly never came home, however, after someone in charge of it was held at knifepoint and forced to hand the camera over.
Dyer returned to his native Ipswich unaware of the furore that emerged following what was found on the tapes. He said: “On Sunday, I asked my mum to get me a paper to see what they had said about the fight.
“She had a face like thunder when she got back and threw a copy of the News of the World at me. ‘You’re an embarrassment,’ she said. I stared at the front page and suddenly everything became clear.
“The paper had got footage of some of the sex sessions in Ayia Napa, including where the guy sneaked into my room.
“‘England Stars in Video Sex Shame,’ the headline said. It was spun that the girls had been duped into being filmed when actually, in the case of the girls who got together with Frank and Rio, it had been done with their consent.
“I would never deny that the way I behaved wasn’t exactly ideal. I wasn’t proud of it.”
England failed to get out of their group at Euro 2000, finishing third behind Portugal and Romania as Keegan’s men fell at the first hurdle.
It’s alleged the sex tape events unfurled during celebrations after England’s sole win of the tournament, a 1-0 victory over Germany thanks to Alan Shearer’s intervention.
Channel 4 later aired a brief clip as part of their 2004 documentary Sex, Footballers and Videotape, claiming it was used to “remind the viewer that this is based on real life”.
Ferdinand, who admitted having sex with the woman, would later state: “There have been controversial and regrettable episodes in my past which have attracted publicity.”
Writing in his autobiography, he said: “I had sex with one girl, which was taped with her consent, and that was it.
“Okay, I’ve played up to the camera a bit, but she knew it was on and it didn’t bother her.”