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Your support makes all the difference.Rio Ferdinand appeared at an east London school on Monday to attend a charity coaching clinic run by the NBA, Greenhouse Sports and the BT Sport Supporters' Club.
The former Manchester United and England captain, 37, was at Cumberland School in Newham along with almost 50 kids as former NBA coach Neal Meyer, who spent 16 years in the league with six teams in a variety of coaching roles, took a variety of sessions.
Ferdinand, who also runs his own charitable foundation, said he has always done charity work, that often goes unreported in the media, but is able to do more now simply because he has more time.
"I do it a fair bit, a few days a month not just with BT, with my own one, it goes up and down," he tells The Independent. "You get asked a lot, there's loads of requests to do things, it's just what you can and can't do.
"I'm not necessarily more interested [in doing it now than when he was playing], you just get more time.
"When you're playing you're governed. Obviously I was at Manchester United for many years and was told what time you've got to be places. So you'd have many requests to do charitable stuff but there's a lot of things in the way.
"If you have an away game and you're in a hotel on a Friday night then you can't do it. [You're asked] 'can you come to this country to do this and you can't do it because you have a game."
Footballers have gained a reputation in this country for being overpaid and not giving enough back to the community, something that Ferdinand believes is unfair.
"Because it's not exciting news," he says when asked why charity work doesn't make the headlines.
"If it doesn't sell papers then they're not going to write about it, that's the disappointing thing because a lot of players, most of the players I know, do a lot of things for charity. But people would rather write about other things a lot of other things."
Ferdinand was engaged during the session that that included ball-handling, shooting and passing. London-based charity Greenhouse Sports work full time in schools to provide programmes that equip young people for live - the scheme is not about developing elite athletes.
They work in nearly 50 primary and secondary schools within the M25, running programmes across a range of sports working with almost 40,000 people. The Supporters' Club is one of the charity's backers.
"Everyone needs an inspiration whether it be a football player coming into your school or a businessman that's done well that's from a similar background to you," added Ferdinand.
"I think when you see someone that's from that same background it gives you a bit of hope and you think it is doable. Then it's about working out how they got there and applying it to yourself. I think it's not just about sportsmen coming in, this is obviously sports orientated, but I think with business it's important to that young kids see that there are people that come from similar backgrounds that can become successful."
He continued: "The good thing about sport is that you can put it to many different levels. It doesn't always have to be performance related. Sometimes it's the taking part.
"Obviously, I think differently when it comes to elite sport, it's all about winning. But there is an area where it's about taking part or getting someone off their backside, giving others confidence, and sport is a way of drawing that out of them.
"There's so many different ways you can use sport as a tool which is a great thing really."
Ferdinand also said that doing this kind of thing is an inspiration to him - and he is going to show his own kids a couple of things that he learnt during the session.
"Yea it's always good because kids see the brighter side of everything. They see the good, the positives out of situations. Even if some of them have been through terrible situations. But looking in their eyes you wouldn't really see it sometimes and as adults I think we can learn a lot from that.
"I'll be able to give him a few pointers, at the moment he gives me a few."
Ferdinand, who says he loves all sports, also revealed that he no longer even had time to play football. A request from The Independent to join our football team was met with a chuckle. The offer is still open...
Rio Ferdinand is supporting the partnership between BT Sport’s The Supporters Club and the National Basketball Association (NBA) which alongside the Greenhouse program supports young people from London’s deprived areas. Watch NBA Global Games London 2016 on January 14 from 7.45pm, exclusively live on BT Sport 1 and BT Sport Showcase.
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