Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant loses £24,000 after audience gives wrong answer in iconic show return

When you place the fate of your prize money in the hands of the audience, you're going to be hoping that there's a few scholars and experts sat in the crowd who know a thing or two.

Although there are often some split decisions on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, most contestants have the faith that there might be a few smarty pants among the spectators who can help them win.

But on some rare occasions, the audience gets it completely arse upwards and ends up scuppering the chances of the player who was counting on them to get the answer correct.

That's exactly what happened when Neil Montero earned his spot in the hot seat opposite Jeremy Clarkson on the revamped version of the iconic show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

The lad, from Cardiff, was selected to have a go at taking home a million quid after scoring a speedy time of 4.03 seconds in the Fastest Finger First round.

The science-obsessed player used up one of his four lifelines while en route to the jackpot when he decided to 'ask the host' Clarkson for help on a question on which major river does not flow through France.

He managed to get through the initial roadblocks quite easily, until he reached the point where he was playing for the big bucks and had to turn to the audience for assistance.

ITV

Montero had utilised his 50:50 lifeline for a question about luxury watch manufacturers, but he then faced an even trickier football question while competing to win £64,000.

It was: "Which is the only one of these football teams England has beaten at a men's FIFA World Cup Finals Tournament?"

The contestant first attempted to 'try and reason it out', but didn't want to take a blind leap of faith so ended up consulting the crowd in the ITV studio to gain their insight.

The four options for them to choose from were Brazil, Argentina, Italy and Spain - which each earned 10%, 21%, 17% and 52% of the vote, with the overwhelming majority putting their money on Spain to be the right answer.

Montero took heed of their advice and selected Spain - but the correct answer was in fact Argentina, meaning he lost out on a whopping £24,000.

ITV

Luckily for him, he had set his safety net at £8,000 so he didn't walk away empty handed - something which made him 'very happy'.

Despite his devastating loss, Montero told Clarkson: "I definitely had fun. No regrets at all."

Social media users couldn't believe both the contestant and the audience weren't clued up on their footie knowledge and some even claimed the crowd might have given him the wrong answer on purpose.

One said: "Audience definitely gave him wrong answer on purpose to send him home."

Another wrote: "What a wasted chance... but fun!"

A third added: "He primed the audience by saying Spain!"

And a fourth wrote: "How did the audience get that question so wrong?"

Maybe phoning a friend would have been a safer choice.