Matt Le Tissier denies saying Government controls weather

On Tuesday, Le Tissier wrote on X: “This year's weather so far has been horrific.

"Wasn’t it lucky for the Government that four years ago when they locked us down we had wall to wall sunshine for weeks on end.

"It’s almost like they planned it that way.”

Later that day, he asked his followers: “Were you aware that human weather modification exists and currently 50 countries worldwide have weather modification programmes?”

The original post was met with widespread mockery, and was viewed 7.8 million times at the time of writing.

Le Tissier responded to the backlash the next day, writing: “Do I believe the Government had the ability to make the sun shine in lockdown?

"No, they couldn’t organise themselves let alone the weather…however is human weather modification a thing? Yes of course.”

Le Tissier is considered by many to be Southampton’s greatest-ever player, with the Guernsey-born midfielder spending his entire career at the club, scoring 161 goals in 443 appearances between 1986 and 2002.

After retiring, Le Tissier split his time between a number of ventures – he regularly featured as a pundit on Sky Sports, became a football agent in 2016, and continues to work frequently with the Ex Saints charity.

In the last few years however, the Saints legend has become an increasingly controversial figure due to his outspoken views and conspiracy theories on Covid vaccines, the war in Ukraine, and 9/11.

Le Tissier himself has said that his views were the reason for his 2020 dismissal from Sky Sports.

Some of his most controversial social media moments were that Russia's massacre in Bucha had been blown out of proportion – a tweet that was hastily removed from his page.

Le Tissier had also been criticised for sharing controversial views on 9/11 – stating that terrorist Osama Bin Laden was working with the CIA and US Justice Department.

When questioned on his behaviour on a podcast in February, Le Tissier said he has “no regrets".