With a footballing CV that features the likes of French lower league outfit Beauvais, Finnish side PK-35 and non-league’s Blyth Spartans, you get a flavour of the level at which Ali Dia was comfortable at. But that didn’t stop the Senegalese striker from appearing in the Premier League for Southampton – thanks, in part, to some classic deception from a George Weah imposter.
Strap yourself in for a tale of footballing fraud: the sort of deceit and daring you’d normally expect from the pen of a Hollywood scriptwriter. On November 23, 1996, Dia became the Premier League’s worst-ever player. But how did he pull it off?
French Folly
1020. Ali DIA
Forward – 20.08.65 – SEN
Prem Debut:
23/11/1996 (SOUTHAMPTON vs. Leeds United, L 2-0 – sub 32 mins)Prem Clubs:
Southampton (96)Prem Apps: 1
Prem Goals: 0 pic.twitter.com/OqfzLwZsoP— Premier League Players (@premlgeplayers) April 30, 2023
Born in August 1965, Dia learned his football in the Senegalese city of Dakar, before making the move – as a number of African players have over the years – to France, where he set about forging a professional career. His first stop-off was at Beauvais, a side that currently plays in the fourth tier of French football. Dia would make just one first-team appearance for them before moving upwards to Dijon in Ligue 2.
However, the striker would never get a game in the land of mustard, so moved on to La Rochelle (one first-team appearance), Saint-Quentin (six games) and Chateaubriand (zero appearances). After six years of football in France, Dia had played in just eight games and failed to find the net in any of them. That’s the official record, anyway. But according to Dia himself, he actually played for PSG between 1986-88 – a ‘fact’ that would later become more pertinent. However, there is no documentary evidence of the Senegalese ace appearing for the future French champions.
After struggling in France, Dia sought an uptick in fortunes in the unlikeliest of locations: Finland. He played five times for FinnPa in the country’s top division, scoring once, before moving to another Finnish outfit in PK-35, where he scored once in three games. Match reports in the press summarily described Dia’s performances as ‘invisible’. It was around this time that Dia met an agent, Bachrir Souleman. He had some unique ideas on how to secure his client a more attractive move.
Immaculate Deception
After a short spell at German club, VFB Lubeck, it was Souleman who convinced Dia to try his luck in English football. He managed to secure his client trials at Bournemouth, Rotherham and Gillingham, but none of those clubs considered Dia to be of a suitable ability to make the grade. Eventually, he ended up at Unibond Premier Division outfit Blyth Spartans, where he was celebrated as the first black player to appear for the club – this was 1996, remember.
Dia played just the once for Blyth, with Souleman desperate for his client to secure a move to a much bigger club. That’s when hit upon his golden idea: he would impersonate African legend and former World Footballer of the Year, George Weah, claiming that Dia was a cousin looking for a new club. Incredibly, Southampton would take the bait. But not everybody fell for the scheme. Harry Redknapp, the then West Ham boss, recalls picking up the phone to ‘Weah’ back in 1996, claiming that he knew it was a ‘wind up’ from the get-go.
Tony Pulis, the then Gillingham manager, was more robust in his assessment of Dia’s talents. “I was shocked to receive a call from someone claiming to be George Weah recommending a friend of his,” he recounted. “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.” However Graeme Souness, the boss at Southampton at the time, fell for the Weah angle hook, line and sinker; giving rise to one of the most infamous debuts in Premier League history.
53 Minutes
On this day, in 1996, Ali Dia played 53 Premier League minutes for Southampton after telling Graeme Souness he was George Weah’s cousin. pic.twitter.com/tW8LCf59dy
— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) November 23, 2016
Souness couldn’t believe his luck that a player known to Weah was being touted to the Saints, so he invited Dia to train with the club for a week. The Senegalese claims that he performed well in training, scoring goals in practice matches and earning his place in the Southampton squad for a game against Leeds United. His teammates don’t remember him quite as fondly, however – Matt Le Tissier describing Dia as like ‘Bambi on ice’.
In a bizarre twist of fate, it was Le Tissier himself who would be injured in the Leeds game after 32 minutes – Dia, as the only other forward player on the bench, was given the call by Souness. He took to the field with gusto, but played so poorly he was later substituted himself – after just 53 minutes of mediocrity. Unsurprisingly, Dia was never seen in the Premier League again. According to Le Tissier, he simply disappeared after the Leeds game and never returned to Southampton.
The story of Dia’s deception was broken in the press, but by this point the striker had resurfaced at non-league Gateshead. Even the story of that move is like a work of fiction: Dia appointed Peter Harrison as his agent, who owned a sportswear brand. When Gateshead rang up looking for a quote for some training wear, they got more than just a few sets of jumpers and shorts – Harrison persuaded them to take Dia as well. Did stated,
I have been portrayed as a con man and a poor player, but I am neither and intend to prove people wrong.
He played eight games for the Tynesiders before disappearing, in his customary style. His career, but for a brief stint at Spennymoor United, was over. According to reports, Dia then went to Northumbria University, got a business degree and then began work out in Qatar. But this is Ali Dia, remember, so who knows what is truth and what is fiction.
