Former England footballer Matt Le Tissier has blamed his Sky sacking on him being a ‘conspiracy realist’ over the Covid-19 pandemic and appeared to suggest ‘crisis actors’ were being used in the Russia-Ukraine war in a recent podcast appearance.
The former Premier League star, 53, was heavily criticised this week after appearing to suggest that the media have lied about the unfolding horrors in eastern Europe, which have seen thousands of people killed and millions become refugees.
As a result, Le Tissier quit as an ambassador at Southampton football club but stopped short of apologising for spreading conspiracy theories about Russia’s massacre of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine.
He retweeted a post from an account named Unity News Net, which claimed the atrocities in Ukraine had been falsified by the media after ‘weapons of mass destruction’, ‘Covid’ and ‘the Hunter Biden laptop’. Le Tissier captioned his tweet ‘This’, with a finger-pointing emoji down to the Unity News Net post.
Grisly images of what are claimed to be civilian massacres allegedly carried out by Russian forces in Bucha before they withdrew have stirred a global outcry in recent days, and prompted Western nations to expel dozens of Moscow’s diplomats and propose further sanctions, including a ban on coal imports from Russia.
US president Joe Biden lambasted Vladimir Putin as a ‘war criminal’ and described the killing of civilians in Bucha as a ‘war crime’.
Le Tissier played 270 times for Southampton in the Premier League, scoring 100 goals. He also played eight times for England. He continued his football career in the media and was a long-standing Sky Sports pundit before he was axed in 2020.
Former footballer Matt Le Tissier has blamed his Sky sacking on him being a ‘conspiracy realist’
The ex-England star said ‘there are too many coincidences’ for Covid not to be ‘below the belt’
In a number of quick-fire dismissals Le Tissier and fellow Soccer Saturday pundits Charlie Nicholas, Phil Thompson and Scott Minto were all let go by the broadcaster in August 2020.
Le Tissier has used his Twitter platform to spread Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories. He has over 570,000 followers.
Last November, The Times reported that Le Tissier’s posts were being shared by Premier League footballers who were hesitant about getting vaccinated.
And now he has admitted that his controversial views at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – which has caused almost 170,000 deaths in the UK – ‘probably ended up with me losing my job at Sky.’
Speaking on The AJ Roberts Show – in an episode titled ‘Joining all the dots together in a hectic world’ that initially aired last month – Le Tissier said: ‘I went into working in the media from 2002 onwards until late August 2020, which was an interesting scenario where I lost my job – obviously the pandemic started in 2020 in March – and very early on in that I had my doubts as to what was really going on.
‘The first thing that started those doubts in me was seeing the videos from China where people were falling over in the street, looking completely inauthentic. Something in your gut tells you “there’s something not right about that”.
In a number of quick-fire dismissals, Le Tissier (second left) was let go by Sky in August 2020
‘I’ve never seen anyone since then who caught Covid and fell over in the street like that, so I think I was pretty correct to be sceptical. They were the images that kicked everything off, and now nobody mentions them.
‘That was the first thing for me. Then early on I spoke to a couple of doctors about the type of people affected by this virus – and found it wasn’t that dangerous to healthy people.
‘So I felt early on there was a massive overreaction to it by the governments. We got locked down, you had a lot of time in your house with nothing to do. So I just thought I’d have a look around and investigate what was going on and the people involved in the pandemic.
‘Suddenly all these people came out the woodwork you’d never heard of before – Anthony Fauci, people like that. Bill Gates had been around for a long time, I’d heard stuff and not taken much notice. I heard the rumours about Bill Gates, so thought I’d go on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website and have a look around.
Le Tissier has angered fans after spreading conspiracy theories about the Bucha massacre
On Twitter, Le Tissier retweeted a post suggesting the media have ‘lied’ about certain events
‘I was amazed to find that all these people that were involved in the pandemic – the WHO and all that stuff – were beneficiaries of money from this foundation. In my mind I’ve always been a bit sceptical of people in power and corruption, and I thought it was too much of a coincidence. It led me onto the World Economic Forum and what they stood for, what they were trying to do.
‘There are too many coincidences for this not to be something a little bit below the belt here, there’s something going on here that’s not quite right and that’s where it all started for me with questioning the narrative and probably ended up with me losing my job at Sky.
‘I had been quite critical of the narrative that was going on in what I thought was a balanced way. I just wanted to see both sides of the story before making up my mind, but I wasn’t allowed to because we were only getting given one side of the story in the mainstream media.
‘I went looking for alternative sources of where I get my news from – independent sources who aren’t tied to any specific organisations and that’s where a whole new world of information opens up to you.’
Le Tissier has also been involved in a string of other controversies on social media.
He once re-shared an image which had been posted by a user in response to a video showing a police officer challenging a member of the public on a train about the failure to wear a protective mask.
Le Tissier has used his Twitter platform to spread Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories
Le Tissier re-shared an image which had been posted by a user in response to a video showing a police officer challenging a member of the public on a train about the failure to wear a protective mask
The image used showed holocaust victim Anne Frank, with words above which read: ‘The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following it.’
Later in the podcast, Le Tissier added: ‘My family have realised over time I’m not a nutter, I’m not a conspiracy theorist – I like to call myself a conspiracy realist.’
When asked for his thoughts on the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the time, Le Tissier suggested ‘crisis actors’ were being used and that there’s ‘possibly something else at play here’.
He said: ‘It is incredible – if you talk to people about crisis actors and point out that that picture they’re claiming is from this war was taken four years ago.
‘Does that not make you a little bit suspicious they’re using a picture from four years ago?
‘With all the technology we’ve got available now, why couldn’t they get a picture from Kyiv?
‘Please, do some critical thinking and just make yourself think that possibly there’s something else at play here.’
Pictured: Bags containing bodies of civilians, who residents say were shot by Russians troops
A visibly emotional President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the devastation in the war-torn town
Le Tissier also called out Premier League players for not asking similar questions and claimed they are being shut down by clubs so they cannot be ‘controversial’.
He said: ‘From what I can see in two years now I don’t think I’ve see a single Premier League footballer come out and question anything that’s gone on.
‘That to me says only one thing – and that is that they have been instructed by their clubs to not say anything, to just shut up and say nothing at all. Don’t be controversial, don’t go against the narrative because it just doesn’t make sense.
‘With all those players now, there’s got to be 500 players in the Premier League, you can’t tell me not one of them is thinking something funny is going on here – because that wouldn’t be representative of society as a whole.’
On the supposed high number of cardiac episodes in football and across sport in recent months, Le Tissier claimed football’s authorities are ‘deluding yourself’ for not questioning it.
Le Tissier thinks Premier League players are being silenced by clubs so they cannot speak out
He continued: ‘I don’t think you’ve got to be a genius to see (it’s gone through the roof). I’ve never in my whole time watching sport seen so many fit, young athletes collapse on their sport fields.
‘I didn’t see one in 17 years of training five days a week. For people not to question it, and not to think we need to have some answers here.
‘We don’t know 100 per cent what’s causing it, but the thing that concerns me the most is that no one in a position of authority is investigating it.
‘The fact that none of the PFA, FA, Premier League, UEFA or FIFA have looked at it. I questioned FIFPRO if they were concerned and I got a response. The chairman was someone I used to play against, he rang me up 20 minutes after my tweet and wanted to convince me that what I was seeing with my own eyes wasn’t real.
‘I ain’t a stupid human being, I know this is not the same as what has gone on before. I’ve not seen this volume of incidents on football pitches. Sorry mate, you’re deluding yourself if you think that this is the same as whatever happened in the 17 years I was a professional footballer. That was shocking.
‘These organisations not wanting to know what’s going on tells me one thing – they know what’s going on and don’t want to find out.’
