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8th October 2024
03:03pm BST
Rio Ferdinand has made a public apology to Phil Jones on his podcast, three years after he told the recently retired player to 'find a new club'.
In 2021, Ferdinand made some comments regarding Jones, whilst he was still recovering from a long-term knee problem that required an operation.
As well as saying he was "baffled" by Jones being offered a new deal by the club in 2019, he also said that the player was taking a young player's position in the squad.
"He’s taking up a youth team player’s position in that squad right now," Ferdinand said on Vibe with FIVE.
"He should've gone when Chris Smalling went. Find a new club and play some football."
Ferdinand then added: "I am baffled at how he’s still been given a new deal at the club given his past few years at the club. It just doesn’t make sense to me how you get a new deal."
A month after this, Jones then opened up on a journey in which he went through "hell and back" during his lengthy layoff, commenting on Ferdinand's remarks, when speaking to The Times:
“I’ve shared a dressing room with Rio - great professional. Loved playing with him. Great lad, good humour. Learned so much off him.
“But what he said was poor. Really poor. I’m not into disputes, not into arguments, and if he didn’t know, he didn’t know.”
After retirement, Jones then recently appearing on Ferdinand's "Rio Ferdinand Presents" YouTube channel.
At the start of the episode, Ferdinand issued an apology:
"I have to say I apologise firstly before anything, I said sorry publicly but I'll say it to your face this time now, for criticising you," Ferdinand said.
"I criticised him about... he wasn't playing for a long period of time and I was like 'he's got to go out and play', I knew this kid when he was 18 and came to Man United, he wants to play football, why is he sitting there?
"Is it the Man United badge that he wants on his chest, is he staying for his own ego, just go and play some football, get out of the way, let another young kid come through because you're stifling someone else's growth maybe."
Jones smiled in response and stated: "Apology accepted."
