If only Rio had managed to reach the light switch before the picture was taken

The Manchester Utd official site is now taking pre-orders for the new 2009/10 home kit, and they appear to have published a picture of Rio Ferdinand sporting it.

They’ve kindly turned off the lights to keep the £42.99 garment covered up until the glitzy kit launch next week, but our friends at Republik of Mancunia have used some Photoshop witchcraft to bring it out of the darkness:

The wonky club crest and startling similarity to the current strip makes The Spoiler believe this may be a red herring. We hope it is anyway - we quite liked the Jose Bosingwa monobrow prototype design.

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Striker wants to join Ferdinand and Berbatov on £110,000-a-week

The Sun have taken a day off from desperately trying to find links between Sir David Richards, Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, Thaksin Shinawatra and Portsmouth to focus on Carlos Tevez’s future.

They claim that the “greedy” striker has demanded a £15,000-a-week pay rise so that his wages match those of Dimitar Berbatov - the striker he outscored last season despite starting less games.

The Spoiler doesn’t think the demands are too outrageous. After all, when Tevez agreed his initial wages in 2007, it was after a season at West Ham where

Manchester Utd star rocks the crop top and and hot pants combo

Rio Ferdinand is currently enjoying a lad’s holiday in Israel (ex-Chelsea star and current complete muppet Jody Morris is among those accompanying him).

Either he is taking part in some good ol’ fashioned stag games (prior to his wedding with Rebecca Ellison in August), or he is preparing to relinquish his reputation as the best dressed man in the Old Trafford dressing room.

[Republik of Mancunia]

Welsh midfielder may not think much of C-Ron

Keen to create a divide between Cristiano Ronaldo and his current employer, Spanish paper Marca are stirring things up extracting some insinuations from an interview with teammate Ryan Giggs.

The Welshman was asked to pick his Manchester Utd dream team, and he proceeded to wax lyrical about the likes of Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney. As you can see from his selection below, however, there is a distinct absence of any lothario Portuguese wingers:

The Giggs Manchester Utd dream team

Schmeichel or Van der Sar (he doesn’t distinguish between them as both are super brill)
Gary Neville
Jaap Stam
Rio Ferdinand
Dennis Irwin
David Beckham
Paul Scholes
Roy Keane
Ryan Giggs
Eric Cantona
Wayne Rooney

The Spoiler is concerned that the old guard has shown an apparent lack of appreciation for Ronaldo, but perhaps a little more concerned that Giggsy chose to pick himself in his own dream team…

Manchester Utd star reveals admiration for cartoon character

On the campaign trailer for his new digital magazine Mambo Number Five, Rio Ferdinand took time out of his busy merking schedule to speak to Channel Bee, the website run by Spoiler fan Tim Lovejoy.

In the frank interview, we discover that Rio’s all-time hero is He-Man, and that he loves The Temptations enough to break into an a capella version of one of their ditties. We also find out the most famous person in his phone is Bono, a man he knows so well he pronounces his name “Bone-o”.

Tricky winger cannot be out-tricked

Back in January, the world of publishing braced itself for Rio, the digital magazine issued by Rio Ferdinand. The Manchester Utd star’s vanity project has finally arrived - albeit with the slightly less vain title #5 - and it’s chock full of interviews, reviews and adverts for lovely Nike products that will improve your life.

Using the access that his position at Manchester Utd affords him, Rio secures a dull puff piece an interview with 50 Cent (the star of a forthcoming film that he is financing) and three minutes with teammate Cristiano Ronaldo, who shows professional freestyler Jeremy Lynch exactly how quick his feet are.

Check out #5 here

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