Fraudster conned football charity out of £200K and used the cash to fly to Qatar for World Cup
A FRAUDSTER who conned a football charity out of £200,000 used the cash to fly to Qatar to follow England at the World Cup.
Fraser White, 24, splurged £7,000 of his loot on designer clothes and posed for photos with a Three Lions banner.
He attended qualifier matches in Malta, Spain and Italy — and shared photos of his travels, including at Qatar’s Lusail Stadium during the tournament in December 2022.
As director of a youth academy, he used his knowledge of the industry to defraud the Football Foundation, the UK’s biggest sports charity.
He made 34 false grant applications claiming to be for nine real clubs across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire between June 2020 and February 2023.
White bought subscriptions for computer programs to create forged documents with false aliases and he set up ten different bank accounts.
Prosecutor Jack Walsh said he applied for £231,038 and obtained £199,433 — all of which he had spent.
The Football Foundation told a court it was oversubscribed for grants to help save clubs after Covid so some missed out because of the fraud.
White, of Maidenhead, Berks, ran the All Star Football Academy in the town and worked as a ticketing executive at Reading FC.
He admitted what the judge called a “well-planned and sophisticated fraud” and was jailed for 32 months at Reading crown court.