‘Everything that I’ve said for the last 18 months, I stand by’

Ex-England and Southampton footballer Matt Le Tissier believes his social media posts about the virus contributed to his dismissal from Sky Sports, where he had been a familiar face on Soccer Saturday – though the company denies this.

He was sacked in August 2020 along with fellow matchday pundits Charlie Nicholas and Phil Thompson.

Sky had been cutting posts as part of a drive to reduce costs but there was speculation at the time that other considerations had influenced the decision, including a wish to have a more diverse panel and concern about Mr Le Tissier’s Twitter posts.

‘I think there were certainly plans afoot to change the show,’ he said.

‘To have a programme with five middle-aged white men on there was never really going to survive. But I’d had a couple of warnings from the guy who runs the sport side of things at Sky about a couple of things that I had Tweeted about which were kind of Covid-related.’

One of these was during the first lockdown in the UK, when there was talk of the suspended Premier League resuming. The league was publishing the numbers of players who were testing positive but not which clubs they played for. Some clubs appeared more ready than others to confirm their players had been affected and Mr Le Tissier thought he saw a pattern emerging.

‘I just happened to comment on the fact that the only clubs that were coming out and saying “yes, it’s our players”, were the ones who looked like they were going to get relegated. I kind of intimated that they were doing it to stop the season finishing so they could stay in the Premier League another season.’

He said this attracted a complaint from a club and he received another warning after publishing Tweets expressing scepticism about the threat posed by Covid.

‘When I got the Zoom call to tell me that I was no longer needed, it wasn’t a complete surprise,’ he said.

‘I did ask them, specifically, if it was anything to do with my social media posts, to which the reply was “well, we have to be very careful about the reputation of our company”. So I took that as a yes.’

A Sky Sports spokesman said yesterday that Mr Le Tissier’s departure ‘was part of a wider change to the make-up of the Soccer Saturday show and nothing to do with anything else’.

Since the development and distribution of Covid vaccines, Mr Le Tissier has gone on to voice concerns about their efficacy and safety.

His views have been met with considerable criticism, as well as some enthusiastic support.

‘I think everything that I’ve said for the last 18 months, I stand by,’ he said.

‘If I had to do the same thing again, knowing what the consequences were, I would, because I stand up for what I believe in.’