England manager Roy Hodgson and former captain Rio Ferdinand have been appointed to the Football Association's commission to improve the state of the national game.
A spokesman for the commission said the two had been brought in for their humour as well as the football knowledge. "Rio is famed for his merking of other players on the tele, while we all know that Roy is a great raconteur and storyteller. When the debate about football gets too much, these two can lighten the mood a little".
Hodgson is famed for his 'space monkey' joke in the half-time break between England and Poland, when the Three Lions qualified for the 2014 World Cup, while Ferdinand pranked his team-mates in the build up to the 2006 World Cup for an ITV entertainment show.
The FA denied that Ferdinand was invited to the commission as a 'token black player' while they expressed hope that Ferdinand would not forget to turn up (like he did for his drug-test in 2003 which led to an eight month ban) or that he would be forced to withdraw from the panel because of a 'pre-planned fitness programme'
