Matt Le Tissier admits being part of attempted betting scam at Southampton

Daily Telegrpah:
Matthew Le Tissier has revealed that he once attempted to play a part in a £10,000 betting scam while a player with Southampton – but, ever the perfectionist, failed when trying too hard to make it look convincing.

Le Tissier colluded with friends and a team-mate to cash in on a spread bet on the timing of the first throw-in in a match between Southampton and Wimbledon back in 1995.

With bookmakers predicting that the ball would go out of play for the first time after a minute, Le Tissier conspired to find touch almost immediately after kick off and then make money having 'bought' under one minute.

However, Le Tissier, one of the finest ball players of his generation, was so preoccupied with not looking like he had fluffed a pass that he instead found a team-mate and then spent an anxious 60 seconds trying to hunt down the ball and put it out.

“Spread betting had just started to become popular. It was a new idea which allowed punters to back anything from the final score to the first throw-in,” he writes in his autobiography Taking Le Tiss.

“There was a lot of money to be made by exploiting it. We were safe from the threat of relegation when we went to Wimbledon on April 17 and, as it was a televised match, there was a wide range of bets available.
“Obviously I’d never 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.

“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.

“The plan was for us to kick the ball straight into touch at the start of the game and then collect 56 times our stake. Easy money.

“It was set up nicely. The ball was to be rolled back to me and I would smash it into touch. 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 Shipperley on the left wing.

“As it was live on television I didn’t want to make it too obvious or end up looking like a prat for miscuing the ball 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 quite enough welly.

“The problem was that Shipperley knew nothing about the bet and managed to reach it and even head it back into play.

“Suddenly it was no longer a question of winning money. We stood to lose a lot of cash if it went much longer than 75 seconds before the ball went out.

“I had visions of guys coming to kneecap me. Eventually we got the ball out on 70 seconds. The neutral time meant we had neither won nor lost. I have never tried spread betting since.”