One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson once had ambitions to buy part of his beloved football club, Doncaster Rovers, without realising that the backers in the takeover involved a group of fraudsters
One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson once hoped to take Doncaster Rovers to new heights in a football takeover – but was duped by a criminal gang.
Other investors in the deal were pension scammers, who funnelled millions of pounds from people’s retirement nest eggs.
It was today reported by the Mirror that Kevin Phelan, Daniel Giles and Adrian Bashforth were convicted last month and face “significant” jail sentences. Prosecutors said the Doncaster deal was a method for the crooks to cover their tracks and explain away to police the missing cash.
Their trial at Leeds Crown Court heard how Louis became unwittingly involved with the gang in 2014 through the club’s former chairman John Ryan.
The former One Direction (1D) star launched a crowdfunder aimed at raising £6million of investment for the takeover from his 36 million X followers and 20 million online fans.
Louis and the criminals met at the singer’s Cheshire home in 2014 – right when 1D were enjoying worldwide fame. He invited several of the criminal gang to a concert in Dublin where he signed the deal that would hand over 70% of Doncaster to Belize-based Sequentia Capital SA if the takeover was successful.
The source of the offshore firm’s funds was “stolen pension money”, as revealed in court.
But the crowdfunder raised just £600,000 and most of that was from a company run by one member of the fraud gang, a £500,000 loan used as a deposit on the deal. Bankrupt Irish businessman Phelan was first asked by Ryan if he wanted to buy the League One club in April 2013.
The court also heard that two attempts were made that year to buy the club by Sequentia Capital SA, but both collapsed.
Ryan transferred his 30% shareholding to Sequentia and resigned as Doncaster chairman. A a new deal was agreed the following year with Louis and Ryan acting as its “public face” while Sequentia was “a silent participant, behind the scenes”.
Phelan, 62, met the singer at his home in January 2014 to discuss Louis’ role in the club if the deal did go through.
Giles, texted that day: “I’ve been interrogated for the last few hours over 1D boy. Kids want to come to the next meeting mate. I’m thinking 16 million brainwashed followers. Very very interesting. Let’s crack on now together and build a nice fighting fund.”
Louis agreed to take a 10% stake in the club in exchange for his support in the takeover with Doncaster’s ambition to enter the Premier League.
In this, Louis would attend training and matches, write a blog and even perform a one-off 1D concert at the club. The deal would have meant Louis and Ryan’s ownership would be 10% each, Sequentia’s 70% and 5% would belong to supporters.
Louis met Phelan and Giles, 51, at a One Direction concert in Dublin’s Croke Park to sign the deal. But due to the poor response to the crowdfunding, it was scrapped and donations were returned. Sequentia did not have the money to complete the deal, the court heard, and Phelan’s promises of having £20m of funding was empty.
At the time, Louis said: “I’m gutted the Doncaster deal is not going ahead. I am desperate for the club to be given the recognition it deserves. I was told the deal to buy the club was not dependent on the money raised by Crowdfunding. Unfortunately I was misled.”
There is no suggestion that Louis or Ryan knew about the pension fraud. At the gang’s trial, prosecutor Timothy Hannam KC said: “These defendants nicked money from people’s life savings.”
Over two years £3.7m had been “liberated” by the crooks from the pension pots of more than 200 victims, who received just £1.3m. They will be sentenced in January.
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