Rio banned for eight months
The Football Association had spent the past two days hearing testimony at Bolton's Reebok Stadium before finding Ferdinand guilty of a 'failure or refusal' to submit a sample.
Ferdinand failed to attend the test at United's Carrington training ground on September 23 but, two days later, successfully passed a test.
The £29.1 million centre half's suspension will start on Monday January 12 but he has 16 days to appeal against the decision.
The punishment not only rules Ferdinand out of the second half of the Premiership season but he will also be missing from England's Euro 2004 campaign.
United have confirmed they will appeal against the sanctions and revealed their discontent at The FA's decision.
"We're extremely disappointed by the result in this case, in particular by the savage and unprecedented sentence which makes an appeal inevitable," said United director Maurice Watkins in a club statement.
"Rio has the full support of Manchester United and The PFA and there will be no further comment at this stage."
An FA statement outlined the Disciplinary Commission's findings and confirmed the panel were unanimous in their verdict.
"The Disciplinary Commission sat on the 18 and 19 of December 2003 to hear the charge of misconduct brought against Rio Ferdinand in respect of an allegation that, on the 23 September 2003, he failed or refused to submit to a drugs test procedure required to be undertaken by the officials of UK Sport as agents for The Football Association and under the supervision of The Football Association Supervising Officer," read the statement.
"The Disciplinary Commission heard submissions made on behalf of Rio Ferdinand and The Football Association, considered the documentary evidence and the testimony of witnesses to the events surrounding the charge.
"The Disciplinary Commission unanimously found that the charge was proved against Rio Ferdinand.
"It was further decided he would be suspended for a period of eight months with effect from Monday 12 January 2004 and be fined the sum of £50,000.
"Having requested a personal hearing he was ordered to pay the full costs of the hearing."
The FA will also be hoping their hefty punishment of English football's most expensive player will appease Fifa after the chief executive of the game's ruling body, Sepp Blatter, previously revealed he would be prepared to step in if the censure was not severe enough.
