The Amazing Story of Ali Dia.

Ali Dia: A legend in his own right

You may have never heard of him and if you had to run a quick Google search on him, what you would find is his name listed as the worst Premiership signing ever but Ali Dia probably has the most fascinating or funny story of all footballers who have played in the English Premiership. Mainly because he isn't a footballer.

Ali Dia dreamed of becoming a pro footballer. So while most footballers dreams come true after countless hours spent on the training ground as kids and a lot of technical and strength training and whatever else it takes to become a pro, all it took for Ali Dia's dream to come true was a very convincing phone call.

See, Ali Dia got a mate of his to ring up then Southampton manager Graeme Souness pretending to an agent. The friend somehow duped Souness into believing that Ali Dia was in fact an accomplished footballer who had scored an impressive amount of goals for PSG in the French League in the previous season and was in fact former Liberian striker George Weah's cousin. Where did they con Souness? The big prize was that Ali Dia, the lethal striker, would available on a free transfer. Souness lapped this story up and Ali Dia was offered a one month contract at the Saints on a trial basis. 

Ali Dia in his one and only game for the Saints

Now at some point in my reckoning, I would think that they would have caught him out at training or something like that. But the lie continued as Ali Dia was scheduled to play in a trial match, but one that had to be cancelled due to a stroke of good fortune (on his side) and a waterlogged pitch. By accounts of former Southampton players who trained with him, Ali Dia was awful, but Souness inexplicably persisted with him. Ali Dia played in his Southampton debut in a Premier League game against Leeds United in 1996. Thirty-three minutes into the game and Saints legend Matt Le Tissier had to be replaced. Enter Ali Dia. To the shock, horror and astonishment of the Southampton players, Souness put his faith in Ali Dia in the number 33 jersey. Twenty minutes later Ali Dia was back on the bench. In that time he proved out on the park that he was hopelessly out of his depth and nothing like what he had been described as in the phone call, at one point he missed a shot at an open goal because of poor ball control. There, in front of a packed stadium at The Dell, Ali Dia showed that he was a fraud. Needless to say, he never played for Southampton or in the Premiership again. Ali Dia went on to play for a few clubs in the lower leagues, never attaining any level of success before quitting and focussing on an academic career.

I cannot imagine how Saints fans feel about being associated with the one of the greatest cons of the professional game. I wonder how Graeme Souness feels about it too. It has the plot of an episode of MTV’s Punk’d, to me it sounds like a funny story of a man who was dared by a drunken mate in a pub to prank Souness and see how far they could go with it. The Southampton fans are known to chant “Ali Dia is a liar” from time to time. Today, I reckon Ali Dia should have a place in sporting folklore. Whatever you think of him, nobody can take away the fact that at one point in his life, Ali Dia was a premiership footballer. He got to live his dream.