Two ex-Premier League stars were left scrambling after a spread betting scam went disastrously wrong at kick-off.
Former Southampton captain Matt Le Tissier has explained how he and team-mate Gordon Watson tried to kick the ball out for a throw-in to win money for their friends – having bet £10,000 together on the outcome. Appearing on Ray Parlour and Alan Brazil’s Pub Talk, Le Tissier was asked about the time he had trouble with “one of those quirky little bets on throw-ins”.
In response, the ex-England international explained: “So, one of my team-mates came to me when I was the captain of Southampton at the time and he said ‘great opportunity, this spread betting business, you can bet on the time of the first throw-in and first corner and all that kind of stuff’.
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“He said: ‘A load of my mates have got spread betting accounts, a load of my mates in London. If we get a kick off in one of the games, we just boot it straight out, my mates would win a load of money. They’ll probably weigh you in a couple of quid.’
“I was like ‘alright, ok, whatever’. So, we go and play Wimbledon. Obviously with this bet you have to bet that the first throw in was going to be sharpish.
“So I had to speak to the Wimbledon captain and go, I think I said to him ‘what end do you like kicking in the second half’ and he went ‘well we like kicking it towards our fan at the end.’ I’ve gone ‘we’ll let you kick that way in the second half, just let us have the kick-off in the first half.’
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“Anyway, the ball gets rolled back to me from the kick-off and, it’s live on Sky right so I don’t want to just smash it into the stand, so I just tried to drift it over.
“Neil Shipperley stood out on the left wing and he didn’t know about the bet. So I’ve tried to clip it over his head and I didn’t hit it hard enough so he’s just headed it back into play.
“Me and Gordon Watson just looked at each other. For the next 60 seconds it must have been funny footage just me and Gordon Watson running around the pitch trying to get hold of the ball to boot it out of play.
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“We got it out of play in the period, because if you get it out before 60 seconds then they win money, after 75 seconds they start losing money and it can be a lot of money. We were panicking and we got it out in that period of time between.”
Le Tissier spent his entire professional playing career with Southampton, scoring 165 goals in 433 appearances for the Saints between 1986 and 2001. He first revealed the story about his spread betting scam attempt in his 2009 autobiography, Taking Le Tiss.
He said Southampton were safe from relegation at the time and he never would have done anything that might have affected the outcome of the match, “but I couldn’t see a problem with making a few quid on the time of the first throw-in”.
Le Tissier said in his book: “My team-mate had some friends with spread-betting accounts who laid some big bets for us. We stood to win well into four figures but if it went wrong we could have lost a lot of money.’
Following his revelation in 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service and Football Association decided not to take any action against him.
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