MANCHESTER UNITED legend Rio Ferdinand was left seething after being handed a Manchester City cake on his birthday.
The former defender, who was celebrating his 45th birthday on Tuesday, joined Laura Woods and Joleon Lescott on TNT Sports ahead of City’s Champions League clash with Young Boys when he was handed a cake that was adorned in sky blue.
Woods went on to reveal that it was a gift from the Etihad Stadium, leaving the pundit stunned.
Ferdinand said: “I actually think that’s disrespectful!
“Thank you very much, but it’s the wrong colour! It’s the wrong colour, isn’t it? Can I push it off, shall I let it fall over?”
Fans were left in stitches, with some comparing it to the birthday cake incident that almost saw Yaya Toure leave Man City in 2014.
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Nine years ago, Toure’s agent Dimitri Seluk criticised the club for not celebrating the midfielder’s 31st birthday.
He even went as far as suggesting that they were considering a transfer as a result.
Seluk told BBC Sport: “He got a cake but when it was Roberto Carlos’ birthday, the president of Anzhi gave him a Bugatti.
“I don’t expect City to present Yaya with a Bugatti, we only asked that they shook his hand and said ‘we congratulate you’. It is the minimum they must do when it is his birthday and the squad is all together.
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“I hear one newspaper has written that City congratulated him from Twitter but this is a joke. It is better they don’t put anything on Twitter if they are not saying anything to him.
“The club’s owners ate a 100kg cake after winning the Premier League this season but when they and the players were all together, none of them shook his hand on his birthday. It shows they don’t care about him.
“Of course Yaya is upset about this. If this happened to you as a journalist in the BBC and nobody shakes your hand, you will say bye-bye and go to work for somebody else. It is normal.”
While Toure initially denied having a role to play in his agent’s outburst, he then changed his tune and tweeted: “Everything Dimitri said is true. He speaks for me.”
However, the fallout did not escalate any further.
Fans took to X to react to Ferdinand’s birthday cake fiasco, with one person writing: “Nobody let Yaya see this. Could be a catastrophe.”
Another quipped: “Bet Yaya is fuming.”
A third fan added: “We can do them for rivals but not Yaya.”
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While a fourth wrote: “I don’t know whose idea it was but give them a raise. Worth every penny just for the look on his face.”
Man City went on to win the match 3-0 thanks to goals from Erling Haaland and Phil Foden.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
