It's been a remarkable couple of years in Matt Le Tissier's career, to say the least.
The Southampton legend has gone from everyone's favourite cult hero to a controversial oracle on world events. He's made several questionable comments about the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine to become a pariah in the mainstream media.
Le Tissier even left his role as an ambassador for the Saints in the wake of his comments, although it's believed he wasn't forced out of the role because of them.
The retired footballer has always denied he's a conspiracy theorist, although some of the views he's shared in recent years would suggest otherwise. Here, Mirror Football takes a look at look at some of the ex-forward's most publicised opinions.
Covid concerns
Le Tissier's views first came under media scrutiny when he posted a controversial tweet about Covid on March 5, 2020.
"Why scare the entire population with this coronavirus stuff?" asked the ex-footballer. "it's only the elderly and people with existing conditions that are at risk but you'd expect everyone was going to die by the way it's being reported."
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At the time, countries across the world were either in a lockdown or heading into one to stop the spread of the virus. Le Tissier was slammed for his tweet with many deeming it insensitive as more than 3,000 people across the world had already died of Covid.
And that was just the start of Le Tissier's Covid tirade. He's since questioned the vaccine, despite it saving an estimated 157,000 lives in England alone - according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organisation.
Le Tissier has also claimed some of the patients who were dying or critical ill in a hospital in Italy at the start of the pandemic were actors. When questioned about the images of these patients by The Times in April, he replied: "Some of those were actors, by the way."
In that same interview, Le Tissier insisted that ventilators 'caused harm to patients' and PCR tests were 'entirely responsible for elevating a flu bug into a pandemic'. He also suggested masks - proven to stop the spread of the virus - were a sign of compliance.
The ex-England international was even brutally shut down by Gary Lineker last September. "Why didn't we ever try this hard to 'defeat' flu?" asked Le Tissier. "It has a similar fatality rate to 'Covid' and actually affects younger people more? Answers on a postcard."
To which Lineker replied: "Yeah Matt, why didn't someone come up with a flu vaccine." Lineker was referring to the millions of Brits who take the flu vaccine each winter.
Le Tissier took the opportunity to hit back at Lineker in his interview for The Times. "I find it funny that he goes out of his way to criticise me for having an opinion that's different to his," said the former Southampton player.
"I have followed Gary on social media for many years and a lot of the stuff I completely disagree with but I have never attacked him for it. But the other way round. He is meant to be the nice bloke, the woke Gary Lineker, nice and inclusive but he is the one going out of his way trying to dig me out."
It's easy to see why Le Tissier has been criticised for his views on the pandemic. More than 6.32million people have died from Covid, including 180,000 in England. Turns out the disease doesn't just effect 'the elderly and those with existing conditions'.
Anne Frank tweet
Le Tissier was forced to apologise in September 2020 for sharing a tweet refencing Holocaust victim Anne Frank. The initial post - not published by Le Tissier - was being used to push a campaign against wearing face masks. The ex-footballer claimed his tweet was "taken out of context".
Le Tissier quote-tweeted a post that read: "The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following it." He added: "Remember this." The post was initially uploaded in response to a video that showed a police officer challenging a train user for not wearing a face covering.
Le Tissier was slammed for the tweet and initially fought back against critics. He wrote: "This appears to have got a lot of bots and trolls tweeting me about masks! Yet I've just checked again and still I find no reference to masks anywhere in the original tweet!"
But Le Tissier later apologised and deleted his tweet: "Apologies for the recent tweet. Obviously taken out of context so I’ve deleted it so there’s no confusion."
Bucha massacre
The world was shocked when approximately 1,000 bodies were discovered in the Ukrainian city of Bucha in April - including 31 children - amid the ongoing war in eastern Europe. Ukraine has been under siege since Russia invaded the sovereign state in February.
Responding the massacre, a Twitter account posted: "The media lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction. The media lied about about Covid. The media lied about the Hunter Biden laptop. But honestly they are telling the truth about Bucha!"
The post was published to suggest the massacre was staged, something Russia has claimed. Le Tissier quote-tweet the post and wrote: "This." He was immediately criticised by hundreds on social media for the insensitive comment.
Le Tissier later admitted he was wrong to publish the tweet in an interview with Saintsplus. "The point that I was making [was] I could have chosen a better example," he said.
"That’s why I deleted the tweet. The point I was trying to get across, I didn’t use the right example to get that across and it came across the wrong way which is my mistake. I should have thought that through better.
"That’s why I chose to delete the tweet and apologise for it. It’s very emotive and it was the wrong thing for me to do. I see that now but it doesn’t change the point I was trying to make, I just used the wrong example."
When asked about the tweet by The Times, Le Tissier said: "The point of the tweet was to say 'don’t believe everything you read in times of war because both sides use propaganda.'"
He was then pressed on the images of destroyed Ukrainian towns and villages, to which he replied: "Some of those images have been falsified. You know that, don't you?"
Tens of thousands of troops - on both sides - have already been killed by the conflict. In April, the UK claimed 15,000 Russian soldiers had perished in battle. Thousands of civilians have also lost their lives, while millions more have been displaced as refugees.
Sky Sports sacking
Le Tissier's most recent comments were on his departure from Soccer Saturday - Sky Sports' flagship results show - in August 2020. He was released by the broadcaster after several years of service in 2020, alongside colleagues Phil Thompson and Charlie Nicholas.
Le Tissier insists Sky 'didn't give a reason' for his exit, yet there was significant pressure on Sky to sack him following his tweets about Covid. "Within five seconds I was told there was no more work for me at Sky," Le Tissier told The Rob Moore podcast.
"I had about seven months left to run on my contract but I was told that I wouldn’t be needed anymore. They didn’t really give a particular reason, they just said 'the show was going in a different direction' - they were the words I think they used.
"So I asked the question, does this have anything to do with my posts on social media? To which their reply was, 'well we have to take into account the reputation of the company when making these decisions.'
"At which point I said 'oh that’s interesting, because at the moment, you are employing somebody who spat at a girl from his car'. Jamie Carragher, who spat at a young girl through his car. They suspended him for six months and then brought him back into the fold.
"I said 'do you not think that might have harmed the reputation of the company at all' and I got told 'we can't talk about other people on this' so that was it really."
