Rio Ferdinand followed the belief to ‘never step a foot onto a club badge’ in his visit to the newly renovated Santiago Bernabeu.
The former Manchester United captain was part of TNT Sports’ pundit crew that made the trip to witness Real Madrid’s thrilling 2-1 (4-3 on aggregate) win over Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League semi-final.
However, Ferdinand has since gone viral for all the wrong reasons. In the build-up to kick-off, Rio tried to get the interactions rolling on X with a rather harmless clip.
Rio posted a video where he can be seen walking on the sidelines of the Bernabeu pitch before noticing the Real Madrid club crest etched into a carpet in front of him.
Now, there’s an unwritten rule among footballers to never step foot on any club’s badge – as it’s considered extremely disrespectful.
He then makes this apologizing sign with his hands before walking around the crest and admiring the gorgeous architecture of the modernized Santiago Bernabeu. Along with the video, he posted a short caption that read: “Respect the Badge. PS: best stadium in the world right now!”
However, Ferdinand didn’t seem to realize just how cheesy and obviously staged this entire clip looks. He failed to really win any admiration and only set himself up for endless mockery.
The fact that the ex-Manchester United captain asked someone to film him walking around the Real Madrid badge and producing such poor acting skills bewildered a lot of fans.
What makes it even funnier is how towards the end of the clip, Ferdinand looks at the phone with a hint of ‘oh you’re recording?’ – an attempt to make it seem like he knew nothing about it – when he obviously did.
Ferdinand was trying to imitate popular videos of various footballers to have skipped past club crests designed onto a stadium’s pitch. The likes of Vinicius Jr, Erling Haaland and Cristiano Ronaldo have all been clipped doing this out of respect for the clubs and Rio wanted to join the club.
What he ended up doing is just making a mockery of this trend, which itself is starting to become annoying for some supporters. As a result, the backlash towards Rio’s harmless clip has been vicious with a series of brutally funny memes.
Andrea Radrizzani’s effort to revamp the Leeds badge made a return –
One fan posted about how they decide to show respect to the Pizza Hut badge by not wanting through their doormat which has the badge designed into it –
Another posted about how their little daughter showed utter disrespect to the Doritos and Walkers’ logos by walking all through a walkway in a supermarket –
Interestingly, it appears that Ferdinand actually might not be as respectful or aware as he tries to show himself here.
An older video has also resurfaced where he can be seen standing inside the Santiago Bernabeu pitch and actually steps into the Real Madrid club crest carpet in an earlier visit. That’s probably even further proof that this clip was just an unoriginal attempt by the ex-Manchester United defender to get applause from the fans.
Ferdinand’s ability as an outspoken and fearless pundit can’t be questioned, nor can his playing career. But the online backlash to his silly little video is probably a sign for Rio to tone down these publicity stunts he tends to pull off for a boost in popularity.
