Edinburgh youth football coach stole £22,000 in tournament funds to pay for gambling habit
The self-employed builder collected a total of £22,644 from the parents of his Hutchison Vale under 16 team who had hoped to send the young players to the Copa Daurada 2024 competition in Salou, Spain.
A youth football coach who stole more than £22,000 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 cash and spent it on his gambling habit while he was a coach with the Hutchison Vale under 16 team based in Edinburgh.
The self-employed builder collected a total of £22,644 from the parents of his players who had hoped to send the young players 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 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 when prosecutor Corey Laouadi read out a written narration into the details of the coach’s offending.
Mr Laouadi said Fraser was a coach with Hutchison 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 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.
Hutchison Vale is a successful youth football team based at the Saughton area of the capital and has produced several players who have gone to play for the Scotland national team including John Collins, Leigh Griffiths and Kenny Miller.