Ali Dia And The George Weah Hoax

Ali Dia And The George Weah Hoax

Whenever the subject of worst signings in Premier League history comes up, you can be sure that one name always comes up. That name is Ali Dia, the man, the myth, the legend that only ever made one appearance, yet is still usually the one agreed as the worst of all time. Despite joining Southampton on a free transfer, there is a very good reason to believe that he is the worst, especially for those Saints’ fans who were there to witness his one and only game. Despite his legendary status, he has pretty much disappeared into the ether since his moment in the spotlight, but his story still bears telling. Also I have to give credit to Bleacher Report, who did two follow up articles on Dia, one in 2015 and one in 2016, where they managed to track him down and unearthed a large portion of the information which is now publicly available regarding Dia.

Born on the 20th August 1965 in Senegal, Ali Dia is actually Aly Dia, which probably goes a long way to explain his ability to vanish from the public spotlight. Even though he was recorded in records kept by the English FA and other football associations as Aly Dia, somehow his name became reported as Ali in the English press. Aly was the son of a diplomat father and school teacher morther, who had 6 children in total. When his father was transferred to the Senegalese embassy in Paris, the family went with him and there, expressly against the wishes of his parents, Aly put his efforts into making a career as a professional footballer. His parents, particularly his mother, wanted him to concentrate on his education but Aly, like so many kids, just wanted to play football. To that end he joined a lower league semi-professional team in France, AS Beauvais in 1988.

After a largely unsuccessful, and brief, spell with Beauvais, Dia moved to Cercle Dijon, then ES La Rochelle and Saint-Quentin, who released him. After a while without a club, Dia signed a deal with AL Chateaubriant. The contract paid him 3,030 francs per month to work with the club’s youth team 87 hours a month and to play for the club. According to club chairman Michel Bonnier, Aly played regularly for the A and B teams in the 1993/4 season. It was not enough to satisfy Aly and he handed in his 3 month’s notice in August 1994 to find another club, moving to Avignon initially.

He resurfaced the following year in Finland, signing for FinnPa (Finnairin Palloilijat – I will stick to FinnPa!) in Helsinki after using something…