Mathew Le Tissier, a legendary Southampton player, has revealed in a new autobiography that he once failed an attempted betting scam during a game against Wimbledon. Le Tissier colluded with friends and a teammate to cash in on a spread bet of over $16,000 on the timing of the first throw-in.
The plan was for Le Tissier to smash the ball over the sideline immediately after kickoff, well ahead of the time that the bookmakers had predicted for the first throw-in. With a payoff of over 56 times the stake, the bet promised to pay "well into four figures," Le Tissier said. "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 [Neil] Shipperley knew nothing about the bet and managed to reach it and even head it back into play."
Le Tissier spent the next 60 seconds tearing around the field to get the ball back so that he could knock it out of play. After 70 seconds he did. If the ball remained in play for another five seconds, "We stood to lose a lot of cash," he said. "The neutral time meant we had neither won nor lost. I have never tried spread betting since."