Matt le Tissier announced his resignation from the post of ambassador of Southampton Club. The announcement came no more than twenty-four hours after he made a controversial Tweet about the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.
On Tuesday, the former forward player of Saints and England retweeted a post from Unity News Net, where it was claimed that the mass killings of the civilians in Bucha and other cities in Ukraine an exaggerated media propaganda spread after the influence of “weapons of mass destruction”, “Covid”, and the “hunter Biden laptop”.
Not only did he retweet the post, but he captioned it with a finger emoji and the word “This”, pointing down towards the tweet. Tissier’s retweeting was subsequently reinterpreted as endorsing the view that the images of the conflict and mass violence that have emerged in media are fabricated. And if you are here for Free Bets, we have you covered!
Followers of Matt Le Tissier and other netizens soon responded with a backlash against Tissier’s dissemination of conspiracy theories regarding the war. He had since then deleted the tweet and publicly apologised for his action in a new series of tweets, where he first announced his decision to step down from his role as the ambassador of SFC. He asserted that his views were always his own and that the step was imperative to avoid future confusion.
Matt Le Tissier assured that this decision did not affect his relationship with and love for his club, Southampton and that he would always remain a fan of and support the Saints. However, he believed it was necessary to distinguish his work from his relationship with the club due to recent events. He assured his fans that he would see all of them at St. Mary’s and would do his best to help them, as always.
After deleting the original tweet, Tissier took to the platform on Wednesday and claimed that people were not getting the point, that his post was about “media manipulation”. Despite repeatedly insisting on his non-allegiance to any form of war propaganda, Tissier was criticised by numerous social media users, including Gary Linekar and David Baddiel. They were appalled at his questioning the integrity of the images of the aftermath of the Ukraine-Russia war.
Matt Le Tissier, renowned as a legend in the club where he had been an ambassador after his retirement from sports, had previously made the headlines for his controversial opinions. He had been an ambassador of the Southampton club since the first month of 2019 and had made the record as the second-all-time highest scorer with 209 goals from 1986 to 2002.
The former striker worked as a panellist in the Saturday Soccer Programme of Sky Sports until August 2020. He had previously shared controversial opinions about vaccination, saying that the response to the Covid-19 pandemic was overwhelming and unnecessary. His views on Anne Frank’s death, too, caused debates.
