Rio Ferdinand was in the HiFi Club in Leeds

The Manchester United defender was giving evidence at the trial of another man accused of the attempted rape and kidnap of a woman.

The woman told the court Mr Ferdinand threatened her after she slapped another player who had tried to touch her.

Mr Ferdinand agreed he was spoken to by bouncers at the nightclub in January last year and that he was told to "chill out".

He also admitted he and his then team-mate Michael Duberry accepted a lift from a man called Reds, he knew from the nightclub, to a Leeds hotel along with two girls.

"Drank champagne"

Mr Ferdinand told Leeds Crown Court he and Mr Duberry drank champagne at the hotel in the early hours of the morning, but denied the girls were with him.

Asked by prosecutor Richard Newberry: "Reds was getting these girls for you, wasn't he?"

The player replied: "No. Not at all."

Mr Ferdinand was giving evidence in the defence of 33-year-old Martin Luther King, of Montague Crescent, Oakwood, Leeds, who denies attempting to rape a 22-year-old woman, indecently assaulting and kidnapping her.

City centre

The woman has told the court she was abducted after leaving the HiFi Club in Leeds city centre and driven to a lane in the city where she was assaulted by Mr King, who produced a gun.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also told the court that, while she was in the club, Duberry pushed his hand up her skirt and she slapped him.

She said Mr Ferdinand then threatened her, saying: "If I don't slap you up I'll get someone else to."

In court , Mr Ferdinand said he had never met the woman.

The trial continues.