Story Of Ali Dia: A Fake Professional Footballer With A Premier League Appearance

[Yousuf]

Ali Dia was a Senegalese who infamously posed as a professional player and tricked Southampton F.C. into signing him in 1996. According to reports, Dia claimed to be the cousin of former World Cup player George Weah and said that he had played for Paris Saint-Germain and Bordeaux.

 

Dia was signed by Southampton after manager Graeme Souness received a recommendation for him from a "George Weah." However, it was later revealed that the recommendation had actually come from Dia himself, who had called Souness pretending to be Weah.

[Bandito Burrito]

interesting, i know there was a billionaire who bought his way into leiceter's reserve team, forget his name

[Michael]

Souness was naive to actually bring him to Southampton, but such a mistake would never happen in today's day and age. There's so much information available about footballers online and it's quite easy to confirm what clubs a player has been at.

 

[Rucksackfranzose]

2 hours ago, Michael said:

Souness was naive to actually bring him to Southampton, but such a mistake would never happen in today's day and age. There's so much information available about footballers online and it's quite easy to confirm what clubs a player has been at.

 

Beg to differ. Don't underrate the criminal energy invested in such projects. Talking about false certificates and other efforts. Silas's case isn't old enough to state no such occurence couldn't be repeated in today''s football, if we're honest.

[Michael]

31 minutes ago, Rucksackfranzose said:

Beg to differ. Don't underrate the criminal energy invested in such projects. Talking about false certificates and other efforts. Silas's case isn't old enough to state no such occurence couldn't be repeated in today''s football, if we're honest.

Yes, sure there are aspiring footballers from the less developed world who still try to falsify their age or lie about certain things to help progress their career, but what I mean is that most top professional clubs in Europe are unlikely to take on a nobody like Dia was to play for their club. Silas was playing very well in France, before Stuttgart bought him and he is a real talent, unlike how the useless Dia was. Dia played for obscure and weak teams before he joined Southampton, and even then he only played a handful of games for them, yet Souness still took him on. He was also 31 years old when he played that game for Southampton.

The story goes that someone pretending to be George Weah, recommended him to Souness. He told Souness that Dia had played for PSG and for the Liberian national team. Today we could find out in an instant if that was true or not. I don't think that any top tier teams today or even 2nd tier teams in the major leagues in Europe would ever be foolish enough to sign and play a player like Dia.

[Dr. Gonzo]

It's kind of mental that this happened and Souness kept having a managerial career for many more years to come.

[Cicero]

Is this true lmao? 

[Pyfish+]

He played for Gateshead afterwards in non-league