Le Tissier writes of betting scam in his autobiography

Ex England football star and ex Southampton captain Mat Le Tissier has revealed in his autobiography “Taking Le Tiss” that he once tried to make money by placing a bet on a Southampton versus Wimbledon match in 1995 in which he was playing. The bet was a spread bet on the time of the first throw in of the game. Having persuaded the Wimbledon captain to allow Southampton to take the kick off in exchange for them playing towards their own fans Le Tissier tried to kick the ball into touch. Le Tissier wrote “It seemed to be going like clockwork” “we kicked off, the ball was tapped to me and I went to hit it out towards Neil Shipperly on the left wing. As it was live on television, I didn’t want to make it too obvious, so I tried to hit it just over his head”. “But with so much riding on it, I was a bit nervous and didn’t give it enough welly”. He added that part of the problem was that Shipperly did not know about the bet and promptly reached the ball and prevented it going out. Le Tissier then faced the prospect of losing money if the ball did not go out of play pretty quickly so in his own words “I’ve never run so much in my life” he chased around until the ball eventually found touch after 70 seconds which meant according to him that he neither won nor lost. Southampton did win the game with Le Tissier scoring the first of the two goals. Hampshire police have contacted the Football Association who are considering what action to take if any.