Edinburgh youth football coach admits £22k Spain trip fraud to fund gambling habit
Football coach conned parents out of £22,644 by faking youth team's trip to Spain
A youth football coach who stole more than £20,000 from parents who had paid for their children to play in a prestigious international tournament has been allowed time to start repaying the money.
Paul Fraser, 45, pocketed the huge amount of cash and spent it on his out of control gambling habit while he was a coach with the Hutchison Vale under 16 team in Edinburgh.
The self-employed builder collected a total of £22,644 from the parents of his players who had hoped to send the team to take part in the Copa Daurada 2024 competition held in Salou, Spain.
Fraser had been tasked with paying the tournament fees and arranging all the travel and accommodation for 30 parents, 18 players and three club officials.
But angry parents were forced to call in the police to investigate after the five-day trip was suddenly cancelled and all the cash went missing.
Fraser was arrested and charged and pleaded guilty to pretending to organise the football trip and obtaining £22,644 by fraud between June 2023 and April 2024 when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.
He returned to the dock for sentencing on Wednesday where prosecutor Corey Laouadi read out a written narration into the details of the callous Fraser’s offending.
Mr Laouadi said Fraser was a coach with Hutchinson Vale between 2019 and 2024 and had previously arranged trips abroad for the youth team.
The fiscal said Fraser had received 39 payments from parents to pay for their children’s travel and accommodation in Spain between July 2023 and April 2024.
The court heard no receipts or payment confirmation were ever received and apart from a single return of £150 to one parent no one has received any reimbursements.
Fraser then left the club and cut off all contact with parents and officials before “16 individuals made reports to the police” about the missing cash.
Solicitor Stephen Mannifield, defending, told the court his client had “given up his own time” to work voluntarily with the football club and Fraser was “acutely aware of the impact on the families”
The lawyer said Fraser had been having difficulties with gambling and had effectively been “robbing Peter to pay Paul” by taking the money paid to him.
Mr Mannifield said: “He is truly and deeply sorry for what he did. He has opened a bank account with a view to putting money to one side to pay to the families.”
He said Fraser could afford to pay £400 per month in repayments and feels “genuine deeply felt remorse” for his offending.
Sheriff Julius Komorowski was given victim impact statements along with character references for Fraser and a report from the Gambling Anonymous organisation.
Sheriff Komorowski told Fraser, of the Capital’s Broomhouse, he was further deferring sentence to next month for the repayments to start.
Fraser pleaded guilty to being paid £22,644 by organising and arranging a trip for a youth football team to attend a tournament in Spain and did without having authorisation to do so used that money for his own purposes and failed to return it and obtained the money by fraud between June 28, 2023 and April 5, 2024.
Hutchison Vale youth team is one of the Capital’s most successful and well-known and has produced several players who have gone to play for the Scotland national team including John Collins, Leigh Griffiths and Kenny Miller.
The bi-annual Copa Duruada international youth football tournament features amateur clubs, schools and youth academies from over 15 countries and is held at the state of the art Futbol Salou soccer complex near Barcelona.