Rio rips into Rooney over drunk night out

Cape Town - Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand has slammed Wayne Rooney after drunk pictures of him surfaced in British media following an international World Cup Qualifier.

Ferdinand questioned his former teammates professionalism and the example he is setting for the younger generation of footballers as national team captain.

The former England and Red Devils defender claims the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo would never be caught in similar circumstances and urged him to stay out of the public eye.

"If you look at the elite players like Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar and [Gareth] Bale... the difference with those players, and Wayne and the mistake that he made, is publicly doing it," he told BT Sport.

"You wouldn't see those players out until five in the morning absolutely off their head.

"That's because either they're protecting themselves and doing it a different way or they're completely football first and that governs their life."