Man’s role in footy players’ scam
ASOUTHPORT man has been convicted of being part of a £5m football training fraud.
Two former footballers – exWales international Mark Aizlewood, 57, and Paul Sugrue, 56, who played for clubs including Manchester City, Middlesbrough and Cardiff City – committed the scam through their business, Luis Michael Training Ltd between 2009 and 2011.
Part of the criminal enterprise involved 30-year-old football coach Jack Harper, from Southport, the jury at Southwark Crown Court in London heard.
The bogus group told colleges across the country they would provide full-time training in football coaching as well as work experience and a £95 weekly stipend to 3,800 students.
But in reality, hundreds of the students on their books didn’t even exist, many lived at the opposite end of the country from the training scheme, while others were doing just two to three hours of study a week.
Ex-footballer Aizlewood was convicted of one count and Sugrue of two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation by offering the non-existent apprenticeships through their firm Luis Michael Training Ltd.
Aizlewood was also acquitted of a second court of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.
The pair – along with fellow directors Keith Williams, 45, and Christopher Martin, 53 – submitted false accounts to colleges to persuade them to do business with the firm.
They promised the colleges it was the perfect opportunity for “NEETs”, or youngsters not in employment, education or training, to gain a qualification.
Williams was also convicted of two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.
Football coach Harper, of Cambridge Road in Southport, was convicted of fraud and using a false instrument. He was acquitted of another count of conspiracy to commit false representation.
Martin admitted two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation ahead of trial, along with Stephen Gooding, 53, who admitted one charge.
The jury of five women and seven men reached verdicts after more than 24 hours’ deliberation.
Judge Michael Tomlinson described the case as “very serious” and adjourned sentencing until later this month.
The company enrolled suitable apprentices to claim money from the colleges, which in turn received funding from the Government-run Learning and Skills Council (LSC), later renamed the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).
Gooding and Harper, who were employed in the business, helped funnel new learners into the scheme.
Some of the bogus students were sourced from a summer football camp run by Harper, who secretly enrolled students to apprenticeships without their knowledge or consent.
LM Training even got sixth formers on work experience in its office to complete tests on behalf of learners, to make it seem like they had the minimum level of maths and English competency.
The work experience students were told they were just practice papers.
When the fraud unravelled, the Skills Funding Agency demanded its money back, leaving large deficits in the budgets of many schools.
Aizlewood denied wrongdoing, telling the jury he had been preoccupied by his late wife’s spiralling mental health prob- lems before her suicide in June last year. He told the court he had neither the “time or inclination” to carry out such a complex fraud during the period.
The former player, who was capped 39 times for his country and made more than 500 appearances in the Football League, described how his wife, Penelope, was suffering from alcohol and drug problems, as well as depression.
Aizlewood said: “I’m a director of a company, but, and it’s a big but, my main thought pattern was what I have to do – I have to get done quickly and get back because of the situation there.”
He added: “It just made Luis Michael, in many ways, of no significance. I had bigger battles to fight and therefore, yes I had to do my job and do my duties, but I’m not so focused on it.”
At the height of his career in the late 1980s, Aizlewood commanded a transfer fee of £250,000 – the record was £1m at the time – and Arsenal and England legend Ian Wright has said Aizlewood’s name was the first in his autograph book.
Harper, of Southport; Aizlewood, from Aberdare; Sugrue, from Cardiff; Williams, from Anglesey; Martin, from Catmore, in West Berkshire, and Gooding, from of Bridgwater, Somerset, were released on bail.