Fraudsters stole £200,000 from a football charity and used the money to fly to the World Cup in Qatar
A FRAUDULENT who conned a football charity out of £200,000 used the money to fly to Qatar to follow England at the World Cup.
Fraser White, 24, spent £7,000 of his haul on designer clothes and posed for photos with a Three Lions banner.
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He attended qualifiers in Malta, Spain and Italy – and shared photos from his travels, including at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar during the tournament in December 2022.
As director of a youth academy, he used his industry knowledge to defraud the Football Foundation, the UK’s largest sporting charity.
Between June 2020 and February 2023 he submitted 34 false grant applications claiming they were for nine genuine clubs in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
White purchased subscriptions to computer programs to create fake documents using false pseudonyms and set up ten different bank accounts.
Prosecutor Jack Walsh said he applied for £231,038 and received £199,433 – all he spent.
The Football Foundation told a court that the number of grants to save clubs after the coronavirus crisis was oversubscribed, leaving some unable to progress due to fraud.
White, from Maidenhead, Berks, ran the All Star Football Academy in the town and worked as a ticket sales manager at Reading FC.
He admitted what the judge described as a “well-planned and sophisticated fraud” and was sentenced to 32 months in prison at Reading Crown Court.