Rio Ferdinand’s younger son, Tate, has followed in his older brother’s footsteps by signing a professional contract with a Premier League club.

Their father is one of the best defenders of the Premier League era, best remembered for his 12-year spell with Manchester United, where he won 14 trophies including six Premier League titles and the Champions League.

Rio worked as a pundit for 10 years after retirement but is now focused on other opportunities. He runs the successful Rio Ferdinand Presents YouTube channel, boasting 1.6 million subscribers, and has done jobs for FIFA around the 2026 World Cup – including hosting the draw in December 2025.

It was revealed last year that Rio’s eldest son, Lorenz, had signed his first professional contract with Brighton and Hove Albion.

The 19-year-old is an aspiring goalkeeper who was part of Brighton’s 2025-26 Premier League 2 play-off winning squad.

Tate Ferdinand Signs Pro Deal at Premier League Club

Action Images / Jason Cairnduff

Lorenz’s younger brother Tate has now also signed pro terms with the Seagulls, with Rio announcing via Instagram: “Proud moment with the family, my boy Tate Ferdinand signed his first pro contract. Keep up the hard work.”

Instagram

Tate has already earned comparisons with his legendary father after starring for Brighton’s Under-21s last term.

It was said that he “moved and sounded” like his dad after playing in the Sussex Transport Senior Cup against Isthmian South East side Hassocks last October, per The Sun.

He showed similar ability on the ball while wearing the number five jersey – the number his father wore at Old Trafford.

Despite the attention that comes with being the son of such a famous footballer, Brighton’s Under-18s head coach Bjorn Hamberg insisted last year that the youngster is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.

“I am sure he doesn’t care about that (attention),” Hamberg said, via The Argus. “Tate Ferdinand is Tate Ferdinand and he needs to be play his game and have his pathway and career.

“He is obviously a leader in the back line and playing very well for the moment. I am really pleased for him as well.”

It remains to be seen whether either Lorenz or Tate will be handed their senior debuts at Brighton this season, but both teenagers now appear to be knocking on the first-team’s door.

Boxing at the Commonwealth Games has often provided up-and-coming fighters with a fantastic opportunity to show their stuff on a big stage.

The Games, held this year in Glasgow, Scotland, have provided a launchpad for the likes of former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, former undisputed light welterweight champion Josh Taylor, and former WBA featherweight champion Barry McGuigan.

This would’ve been plenty of ammunition for Ugandan Aziz Abdul to believe he could be the next star to be discovered from the Games. However, his participation in the boxing tournament has already come to an end via a disqualification loss in his first-round fight with UK representative Damar Thomas.

Things soon got worse for Abdul’s reputation when it was revealed who appears in his family tree.

Aziz Abdul’s Grandfather is Idi Amin

Abdul is the grandson of one of the world’s most evil dictators, Idi Amin, who ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979 and forever changed the country.

Amin seized power in a military coup at the beginning of the 1970s and began a brutal eight-year reign as head of state. He reportedly killed over 300,000 of his own people, which could’ve been a lot more had more members of the country’s Asian population not escaped when Amin decided to expel people of Asian descent from the nation.

If that wasn’t enough, he, like many dictators, began a pointless, costly, and ultimately disastrous war. Amin’s target was neighboring Tanzania.

The pretext for the conflict was that the leader of the fellow East African nation at the time, Julius Nyerere, provided asylum and protection for the man Amin had deposed, Milton Obote, and those who had fled the Ugandan regime, allowing a base for resistance to build. Beginning in October 1978, it only took until the following June for him to be defeated and overthrown, and he lived in exile until his death in 2003.

Idi Amin’s Grandson Takes to Commonwealth Games

Ironically, during his time in power, one of the many titles Amin gave himself was “The Last King of Scotland”, and that was what his grandson Aziz was aiming to become in the Scottish capital, albeit without the brutality associated with his grandfather’s rule.

In his first match of the competition, he took on Thomas in the super heavyweight division, but the fight ended in the third round after he rather stupidly decided to land a headbutt on his opponent, leaving the referee with absolutely no choice but to disqualify him and end his Games entirely.

Abdul didn’t take kindly to the decision, claiming that he had been cheated by the officials. While a straight disqualification is a rarity in combat sports, the rules state that a severe violation, which includes a blatant headbutt, is grounds for a fighter to be immediately thrown out of a bout, which is what happened.

While there is a good chance that there was a pre-existing stigma around him among those who knew his lineage, Abdul’s actions in the ring created a controversy of their own. If he had fought a clean fight, the focus could have remained solely on his own career rather than his family history, but the foul ensured that the spotlight shifted elsewhere.

Former England striker Gary Lineker’s tweet about Gianni Infantino from 2016 has resurfaced this week, just as FIFA’s top dog unveils plans to make billions by selling stakes in the World Cup. Unsurprisingly, the controversial proposal has sparked a wave of backlash from football fans and governing bodies.

Recently appointed UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham is among those to publicly criticise Infantino, while UEFA has issued an explosive statement condemning the way Sepp Blatter’s successor has monopolised the working-class game. But they are just two of the thousands who have grown weary of FIFA’s direction, particularly over the course of this summer.

Claims of corruption have come thick and fast throughout the World Cup, with alleged favouritism towards Argentina and the decision to rescind Folarin Balogun’s red card at the request of Donald Trump emerging as the two main flashpoints. But it seems Lineker was well ahead of the curve in seeing this coming.

Gary Lineker’s Tweet About Gianni Infantino in 2016 Resurfaces

Even 10 years ago, Lineker had doubts about Infantino, 56, who is already a Swiss millionaire before profitting from his leadership over football. The former Tottenham and Barcelona striker had his reservations about whether he would be any better than Sepp Blatter in the 2016 FIFA election, writing on X (see the full post below):

Football fans have been left stunned by how well Lineker’s predictions have come true. Blatter was ousted after the Swiss attorney general opened criminal proceedings against him over a $2 million payment to UEFA President, Michel Platini, as well as allegations of selling World Cup TV rights to former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner for below their true value.

The same claims of corruption are now being made against Infantino, whose money-hungry ways have led European lawmakers to prompt an investigation into him, his management of football, and his relationship with the White House.

Gianni Infantino’s Astonishingly Still Set For Re-Election

REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Infantino has the formal endorsement of more than 200 FIFA members for re-election as the body’s president despite the climate of unrest that has swirled since the World Cup’s conclusion.

The Guardian reported just last week that only a handful of Fifa’s 211 member associations are still to send letters of support for Infantino, who is on course to be voted into a fourth term by a landslide at its congress in March. A small number of European associations are among the outliers, with Germany the highest-profile FA yet to provide official backing.

Candidates must be put forward by 18 November, before which time letters can also be withdrawn or transferred to a different contender. But Infantino is currently the only runner and some FAs feel they have, nonetheless, come under persistent pressure from within FIFA to confirm their allegiance. In theory, that should not be permitted under FIFA’s ethics code, but makes it incredibly difficult for the current leader to be dislodged.