David Gill has revealed the one mistake Manchester United made when fighting Rio Ferdinand's ban for a missed drugs test.
Back in 2003, the United defender found himself at the heart of an event that shocked the footballing world and also nearly lead to a mutiny from his England team-mates.
The former Leeds and West Ham star had failed to provide a drugs sample following a training session on September 23. Ferdinand, who was 25-years-old at the time, had stated that he had forgotten to take the test and had provided a clear sample two days later.
Ferdinand was dropped from Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad to take on Turkey in their Euro 2004 qualifier in Istanbul, in which they needed a point to gain a berth in the finals of the competition.
Despite his and the club's best attempts to fight the decision, he was charged in October of that year by the Football Association for breaching of rule E26 for 'the failure or refusal by a player to submit to drug testing', before being handed an eight-month ban from football and a £50,000 fine.
United were incensed by the decision to ban him, with Gill previously claiming Ferdinand was a 'scapegoat'. Ferdinand would begin his ban on January 20, 2004, and would lose an appeal in March of that year.
He wouldn't play again until September 2004, when Man United beat Liverpool 2-1 at Old Trafford.
But former United chief executive Gill reflected on the situation with the ex-England defender on his podcast 'Rio Ferdinand Presents FIVE' and revealed the one thing he'd have done differently.
'That was a kind of baptism of fire, because that was 2003 and I had just came in and taken over and he'd given me this hospital pass. Thanks Rio,' Gill, who was appointed as the club's CEO in 2003, said.
'Just a little test wasn't it?' Ferdinand replied.
'It was, very unfortunate wasn't it?' Gill added. 'I think everyone knows that Rio doesn't take drugs and there wasn't a drug issue. If I look at it I would have possibly, or probably have handled it a bit differently.'
'Would you?,' Ferdinand, who went on to make 455 appearances for Man United returning eight goals.
Gill responded, 'yeah,' before the podcast host added: 'We've never spoken about this before. What would you have done differently?'
'What I'd have done differently was, we were very legalistic in our challenge. I have learnt over the years that sometimes in football you can be too legalistic, whether that be challenging UEFA or whether it be these things. Sometimes you might need to be it.
'If I look back at our legal challenge, we were very supportive to you, quite rightly. We thought it was outrageous what they were doing.
'But if we had not gone down the legal route - which we were quite technical in arguing against it - then perhaps we could have had a more lenient sentence
'I just think we had a bit of siege mentality too early on it. I know Rio said "look I shouldn't have done it", which you did or "I made a mistake and I did it", you never know what people will do.'
Gill's comments echo those of Ferdinand's former team-mate Gary Neville who admitted in his book 'Red: My Autobiography' that Ferdinand had 'paid a high price for the case becoming such a cause celebre'.
Neville added that Man City midfielder Christian Negouai had also missed a drugs test but had only been handed a £2,000 fine.
Neville added: 'He'd not been helped by his legal advice, going into the hearing with all guns blazing. knowing that the FA were out to make a stand, I told Rio he should walk in with his mum and do a simple handwritten apology.'
Gill and Ferdinand also recounted going to former FA director David Davies' house to appeal to the executive to drop the charges against Ferdinand.
'Now people at the FA may have had an agenda to get him and Manchester United - we will never know,' Gill added. 'But I just think sometimes if you push it too far down the legal route on a football matter, you appeal to people better, your great behaviour at the time and your service to your club and country. You never know what will happen.
'The club could have been very supportive of Rio because we don't have any issue with it but perhaps our approach to the authorities could have been perhaps a bit more conciliatory, and we might have gotten a different outcome. Because that screwed the season up, because we went to Wolves played there...
Ferdinand interjected, saying: 'That was my last game.' United went on to beat Wolves 1-0 on January 17.
He added: 'It was mad because we were top of the league then as well. You did try though, because I remember we drove down to FA executive director David Davies' house. I felt like a kid. We walked into his house, with Mr Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson.
'And they went, right, you go and sit in there Rio, we're going to deal with this. And they just walked in there and obviously battled it back-and-forth.'
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