Ban stands for Rio

RIO FERDINAND was last night declared drug free – but it hasn’t been enough to save his European Championship dream.

For the second time in three months, the £29.3m Manchester United defender faced a blaze of flashlights and attempted to come to terms with an eight-month suspension for a costly missed drugs test at his club's Carrington training ground on September 23 last year.

Unless he decides to go for and win another appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, Ferdinand will now be banned from all football until September 20, ruling him out of the rest of United's ailing Premiership campaign, the start of the next one, plus the whole of Euro 2004 and England's first two World Cup qualifiers in Poland and Austria.