It is 20 years this Wednesday since Ali Dia graced the Premier League for 53 woefully inept minutes. Having been waved away by several other clubs, the striker ended up joining Graeme Souness at Southampton on the recommendation of someone pretending to be George Weah, and, due to injury problems, appeared from the bench against Leeds United after just one training session. Dia was so bad he was taken off, leaving Souness red-faced but ensuring two decades of laughter for the rest of us.

Here is the story of the most famous phoney in the history of British football, told by those who were there to witness his very brief time at the top.

‘We gave the lad a trial and he was rubbish’

Dia had been offered to a number of clubs by ‘George Weah’, but it soon became apparent all was not as it seemed everywhere but at Southampton.

Harry Redknapp, 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, you wanna play for West Ham?’ He said: ‘No, I have a player for you.’ I thought: ‘This is a wind-up.’”



Port Vale secretary Bill Lodey: “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.”

Tony Pulis at Gillingham was also taken in at first: “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.”

‘African ace joins Blyth’

Dia eventually found a club in the UniBond League – a long way from the top flight.

On this day 1996 the infamous Ali Dia became 1st ever black footballer to play for @Blyth_Spartans in 1-2 NPL loss to @bostonunited #1stever pic.twitter.com/0fCn4X6j1W — Blyth Spirit (@BlythSpirit66) November 9, 2016

From Northumberland to The Dell

While at Blyth his “agent” persisted with getting him a big move and a fortnight later, Dia signed a short-term deal with Southampton – and they initially had high hopes.

Graeme Souness: “He’s played with George Weah at Paris Saint-Germain, and last year he was playing in the second division in Germany. 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.”

Fast track to infamy

However, it did not take Southampton’s players long to notice they had brought in a dud.

“I only really trained with him once, on the Friday before the fateful day.” Matt Le Tissier recalled. “He joined in the five-a-side on the Friday morning, and was introduced to us as a trialist. I remember at the time thinking: ‘He’s not very good. He’s probably not going to make it.’”

Yet Dia did. With Southampton depleted by injuries, he was put on the bench for the match against Leeds on 23 November. When Le Tissier came off injured after 32 minutes, Dia replaced him.



“Souness surprisingly brought on Senegal international Ali Dia for his Premiership debut after the player had been at the club on trial for only a week,” read the Sunday Mirror’s match report. “But Dia, a close friend of AC Milan superstar George Weah, missed a golden chance with his first kick and was substituted himself late in the game by Ken Monkou”



In total Dia lasted 53 minutes, replaced with five to go by Monkou.

“He ran around the pitch like Bambi on ice,” Le Tissier said. “It was very, very embarrassing to watch. We were like: ‘What’s this geezer doing? He’s hopeless.’ Graeme named him as a sub and we couldn’t believe it. I got injured after 20 minutes and when I saw him warming up, I’m going: ‘Surely not?’ Graeme put him on and he was fucking hopeless, so he took him off again. It was crazy.”

Souness defended his decision because he had such a shortage of options but admitted it was a “kick in the bollocks” to see how awful Dia played. “I sent him on today having never seen him play Premiership football. But I do not have any strikers. Am I enjoying this? Do you enjoy a kick in the bollocks?” he said after the 2-0 defeat. “It just goes to show the state of things at the club at the moment that a player I have never even seen, let alone watched playing in a game, was able to play in the Premiership.”

Four years later, in a BBC programme, Souness had appeared to blur much of the afternoon out. “The one thing I remember is that he didn’t touch the ball too many times,” he said.

Yet even after Dia’s horror show, The Independent was flagging him up as one to watch. Their edition on 25 November read: “Watch out for... Ali Dia (Southampton). 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.”

Le Tissier, though, had cottoned on immediately and it was not long before his team-mates realised something was amiss. “His performance was almost comical. He kind of took my place, but he didn’t really have a position. He was just wandering everywhere. I don’t think he realised what position he was supposed to be in. I don’t even know if he spoke English – I don’t think I ever said a word to him. In the end he got himself subbed because he was that bad.

“The mood was pretty sombre in the dressing-room afterwards, so we didn’t really discuss him then. I think on Monday morning it was probably more of a topic. By then he was gone, never to be seen again. Apparently he came in for treatment on the Sunday morning, according to the physio. He was told to report again on Monday, and he just did a runner. I don’t think he paid for his hotel bill or anything.”

“He was like Bambi on Ice”

‘The man who’s conned Souey’

Dia’s departure that Monday went unnoticed, until the Sunday Mirror broke the story that Saints were duped on 15 December 1996.

“He came on and clearly wasn’t up to the standard – and we let him go the next week,” said Lawrie McMenemy, Southampton’s director of football, at the time. But it soon became apparent that there was more to the story than Dia merely being let go.

“I don’t feel I have been duped in the slightest … because that’s the way the world is these days,” Souness said upon learning Dia was a charlatan. “It cost us a couple of grand for two weeks wages. It’s not broken our hearts – and we certainly don’t feel hard done-by. He was an international player so we gave him a go, but he didn’t impress and has now left the club.”

But he was not an international player. The Senegal football federation refused to supply information about his record and Weah then said he does not know anyone called Ali Dia nor had he ever spoken to Souness. Dia tried to deflect the blame on an agent.

I’ve been made to look a con man, it’s not true. I employed an agent when I came to England and he is the con man. He must have been calling all these clubs pretending to be George.

“He has played 13 matches for Senegal and scored five goals.” read a report in The Guardian on 16 December. Except he had not and his relationship with the Liberian legend Weah was blown out of all proportion. “I do know George Weah, but I’m certainly not his best mate,” Dia said, elaborating on a conversation he had with Souness in an interview a little after the con became clear.



Dia: “He told me that George rang him and said that I’m a good player. I’m not afraid to say that: ‘I’m a good player, I can prove that”

Journalist: “So George Weah did ring Graeme Souness?”

Dia: “Personally, like I told you, I don’t really know.”

Souness later said in Saints and Sinners, Graham Hiley’s book on Southampton’s hard men: “The story that we were conned could not be further from the truth. We knew in the first ten minutes that he was hopeless … Truthfully we knew straight away he was not good enough for the Premier League, but we were desperate.”

Dia finds his level … and soon becomes anonymous

Dia then signed for non-league Gateshead in December, and scored on his debut, a 5-0 win over Bath City.

“The Southampton thing was a misunderstanding,” he said upon signing. “I just want to forget about it now. I’m delighted to sign for Gateshead and I will be with them until the end of the season.”



He scored two goals in eight games, but a change of manager did for him and he was transfer-listed in February 1997. He reportedly enrolled at Northumbria University, graduating with a degree in business studies in 2001.

Dia’s duping of Southampton was certainly a good piece of personal business – he made £2,000 during his two-week stint on the south coast, and reportedly earned £400-a-week at Gateshead, becoming their top earner while also getting a four-figure signing on bonus.

Dia’s whereabouts since graduating are unknown. If you are out there, Ali, let us know …