Many people dream of becoming a professional athlete in any sport, they work hard every minute and every day, trying to become great. But few don´t feel like working hard, and that is the case for a guy named Ali Dia.
Ali Dia is a former footballer from Senegal. After playing in the lower leagues in France and Germany, and failing to impress on a trial for a few English teams, Dia had the idea to try to trick his way into the Premier League.
Ali Dia, who then was 31 years old, called his agent and made him call Graeme Souness, who was at the time the manager of Southampton, and try to get Ali Dia a contract at Southampton.
Dia´s agent pretended to be George Weah, who was at that time one of the best footballers in the world having won the Ballon d´Or and FIFA World Player of the Year in 1995.
While pretending to be George Weah, the agent told Souness that Ali Dia that he was his uncle. He told him that Dia had made 13 apperances for the Senegal National team and played for PSG in France.
Believe it or not, Graeme Souness fell for this con and decided to give Ali Dia a month long contract. At his first practice session, a few of the Southampton players were playing five-a-side, including Ali Dia, and Matt Le Tissier didn´t think he was Premier League quality.
“We were playing five-a-side, and to be honest, he didn´t look very good, and we thought, fair enough, trials they come and go, and I just think that this would be the same thing, we would never see him again.” Said Matt Le Tissier in an interview.
But on 23 November 1996, Southampton were playing against Leeds in the league and Ali Dia was on the bench. And on the 32nd minute, Matt Le Tissier suffered an injury and was substituted for no other than Ali Dia.
Still to this day, people laugh at his skills for Southampton even though he almost scored a goal, he was awful and only lasted 53 minutes on the pitch before being taken of in a 0-2 loss against Leeds. Shortly after the game, Ali Dia was released from Southampton after only 2 weeks. He played for a short time at Gateshead FC in the National League in England.
After being asked in an interview if George Weah had called Graeme Sounesse, Ali Dia said “Personally, like I told you, I don´t really know.” Dia stuck to his story and said that he was a good player even though the whole world knew he was awful.
You could say that this is the biggest con in football history but the world got a good and funny story from it.
Post by: Danival Ísak Jónsson
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