The story of Ali Dia – George Weah’s ‘cousin’ – and his 53 minutes of fame at Southampton has become one of the most famous and most bizarre stories in English football history.
It’s also something the man who signed him, former Saints boss Graeme Souness, will never be allowed to forget, despite his attempts to lie the blame at club legend Matt Le Tissier’s door.
It’s a story that remains completely ridiculous, no matter how many times you hear it, in which the 31-year-old Senegalese ‘striker’ not only convinced Souness that he was a footballer worthy of the top flight, but also that he was the cousin of Ballon d’Or winner Weah.
Soon afterwards, Saints would realise they had been duped by the biggest phoney in the history of English football, after inexplicably giving him game time against Leeds.
And more than two decades later, Dia’s story has become legend.
Just a few days before signing a one-month deal at St Mary’s, Dia had been playing for non-league side Blyth Spartans.
Then, against Leeds on November 23rd, 1996, he was the only fit player on the Saints bench who wasn’t a defender, and so when Le Tissier was forced off with injury, on he came.
Replacing the club legend didn’t work in his favour, but neither did his performance, with Le Tiss later describing Dia as ‘like Bambi on ice’, and ‘f***ing hopeless’. He was later substituted in the second-half and Leeds went on to win 2-0.
In the years since – 23 to be exact – Souness has attempted to save face by insisting he knew exactly how bad he was.
And he told talkSPORT back in 2017 why he simply had no other choice but throw the ‘fool’ on against Leeds.
‘After five minutes we knew he was a dumpling.’
“It’s one of those stories that’s got arms and legs,” Souness told the talkSPORT Breakfast host Alan Brazil in 2017
“We had no dosh at the time at Southampton, and we had players in most weeks to train.
“So this guy turned up, someone had phoned the club to say he was related to George Weah and he turns up for training.
“Now, I’ve got serious football people with me and within the first five minutes we knew he was a dumpling, we knew he was not good enough.
“We let him stay to the end of the week, but as the week went on we had injury after injury after injury, and then we get to Thursday or Friday and Terry Cooper said to me, ‘you know you’re going to have to involve that fool in the squad of Saturday’.
“I said, ‘no we cant do that’, but he said, ‘I’m telling you, you’ve got nothing, you’ve got full-backs and centre-halves, you’ve got no strikers at all’.
“So we register him for a month and he’s on the bench against Leeds – God forbid anything happens to Le Tiss!
“I think it was after 16 minutes, Le Tiss comes off injured, and I looked along the bench and I’ve got centre-halves and full-backs and I’m thinking, throw the fool on, he’ll at least run around and be a pest on the pitch.
“But he goes on and had the most marvellous knack of being where the ball had just been, he’d arrive in late every single time, so we took him back off.
“Of course the story was we were conned, we gave him a contract, the reality is we knew right away he wasn’t good enough.”
He did almost score, though, which people appear to forget…
At the time though, it appeared Souness was hooked, line and sinker, by the phoney’s story.
“He’s played with George Weah at Paris Saint-Germain, and last year he was playing in the second division in Germany,” he was quoted as saying at the time.
“We’ve said, come down and train with us for a week or so and see what’s what … when someone like that gives you a recommendation you tend to sit up and take notice.”
‘I thought he’d won a competition’
While Souness signed him, Le Tissier later told talkSPORT he’d never shake off the embarrassment of being the man substituted for the worst player ever to play in the Premier League.
Explaining the story to Sports Bar hosts Andy Goldstein and Jason Cundy back in April, he said: he said: “He came to training and trained with us for a couple of days, and it was quite odd. I was thinking, ‘what’s he doing here?’ I honestly thought he’d won a competition.
“On the Friday we played five-a-side and he wasn’t particularly great in that, and at the end of training I was taking penalties and went a twinge in my thigh.
“Anyway, we turned up the next day for the game, sat in the dressing room at 1:45pm and this guy is sat in the changing room! I was sitting there thinking, ‘wow, that’s some competition he won. Not only did he get to train with us, he’s going to hear the team talk and everything!’
“And then Souness names the team and he says, ‘and the subs are Ali Dia’, and I was like, WHAT?!
“Then, about 20 minutes into the game I’ve gone to cross the ball with my right foot and I felt same muscle go a little bit more and I was struggling. I tried to carry on for a little bit longer but in the end I signaled to the bench that I’ve got to come off.
“I saw him warning up and I thought, ‘oh my God’. At that point I nearly went, ‘do you know what? I‘ll stay on, even with one leg I’m staying on’, but I couldn’t.
“So the player renowned as being the worst player the Premier League has ever seen and the person he came on for was me! It’s a lovely little thing to have on my CV.”
What was the reaction from his other Southampton teammates?
“It was just disbelief, really,” Le Tiss added.
“I knew we had a couple of injuries around that time and we were a little bit light in the forward department, but I didn’t think for one second that he [Souness] would just stick him straight on the bench given what we’d seen in training in the days before.”
Incredibly, Southampton wasn’t the only team Ali tried his ‘George Weah’s cousin’ spiel on – which he would later blame on his ‘agent’, whoever that was.
Harry Redknapp, then-West Ham manager:
“I keep getting phone calls at the training ground from a guy: ‘Georgie Weah.’
“Georgie Weah was world footballer of the year. ‘Lovely George,’ I said. ‘You wanna play for West Ham?’
“He said: ‘No, I have a player for you.’ I thought: ‘This is a wind-up.’”
Tony Pulis, then-Gillingham manager:
“I was shocked to receive a call from someone claiming to be George Weah recommending a friend of his.
“I wouldn’t have thought a man like Weah would have heard of Gillingham, but we gave the lad a trial and he was rubbish.”
Bill Lodey, secretary of Port Vale:
“He was recommended to us by someone very important and he played one reserve game against Middlesbrough.
“To be honest he didn’t impress, and we last heard of him at Rotherham.”
They weren’t the only ones fooled, either. Even after his short-lived debut for Southampton, The Independent newspaper touted the ‘striker’ as one to the watch – even though he was 30.
“Watch out for Ali Dia (Southampton),” their edition on November 25, 1996, read.
“At 30 years old, the out-of-contract former Bologna striker – the first-half substitute for Matt Le Tissier on Saturday – may have much of his career behind him, but his arrival at The Dell comes on the personal recommendation of George Weah, a former team-mate at Paris St-Germain.”
Where is Ali Dia now?
It appears Southampton, and the rest, should have done their homework – although admittedly before the internet was the resource it is now, it would have been difficult to track down anything of Dia’s past. Actually, it still is.
Dia’s entire career is shrouded in mystery. After being dumped by the Saints he went on to join non-league Gateshead in the following December.
He scored on his debut, and managed two goals in eight games, before being transfer listed in the February. He then reportedly enrolled at Northumbria University, where he graduated with a business degree in 2001.
Since then he appears to have disappeared off the face of the earth. There was a Twitter page set up to find the cult hero, and he was the subject of two Bleacher Report investigations, until they finally tracked him down.
Well, they claim to have spoken with him on the phone – but who can be sure?
There was something very fishy about the ‘Senegal international’ – he wasn’t, that was a lie as well – as Bleacher Report found out when they spoke to his former teammate at Finnish club FinnPa, where he played in 1995.
He got around, didn’t he?
“When Ali arrived, he had something. With the outside of his right foot, he could go round a defender,” said former FinnPa midfielder Simo Valakari.
“But that was all he had. After the first two weeks, bam, it was gone. Maybe it was the parties or something, but then he looked like he had never played football at all.”
His impact on the pitch may have been nonexistent, but the legend of Ali Dia will live on forever.
The post Ali Dia: Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier, Graeme Souness, and more on George Weah’s cousin – football’s most famous phoney appeared first on Kenya Latest.
