EXCLUSIVE: England’s World Cup-winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks is known most at the 1970 World Cup for making the ‘save of the century,’ but was he also the victim of a secret service plot at the tournament?

Audible has unveiled Foul Play, an investigative series launching on May 28 that asks whether Banks was poisoned by the CIA during the World Cup in Mexico. The theory goes that he was administered a bout of food poisoning that saw him miss a crucial quarter-final match against West Germany that ultimately saw the reigning champions crash out.

Ed Jervis, Banks’ grandson and investigative journalist Gabriel Gatehouse (The Coming Storm) seek to uncover the truth behind the incident. They track down Banks’ former England teammates and ex-spies and comb through CIA documents to build a picture of a world of spies, secrets and skullduggery.

As they travel from Stoke-on-Trent in the English Midlands to Mexico and the U.S., they uncover evidence of a CIA poisoning program and find Banks’ story entwined with the Cold War and potentially linked to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Grayhouse Productions is making the seven-part series for Audible.

Gatehouse, co-host and executive producer of the podcast, said: “When I first heard this story, I thought it sounded utterly ridiculous. Surely, this couldn’t be true? But the more I dug into it, the more plausible it seemed. Ed and I spent three years investigating, and we’ve uncovered more evidence than I could ever have imagined.” 

Jervis added: “What started out as a journey to find out the true facts of a family tale, turned into something much more serious and unsettling. Our attempt to solve this mystery on behalf of my grandad, took me into the murky world of cold-war politics and Latin American dictatorships; and what we uncovered was beyond my wildest imagination.” 

Banks, who played for the likes of Leicester City and Stoke City, was a key member of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team.