FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Sports

Soccer Team's Fan Raffle Draws Little Interest, So They Probably Made up a Fake Winner

This is one of the more embarrassing scams you'll read about.

Chesterfield FC, a third tier team in English soccer who notoriously signed convicted rapist Ched Evans, put together a fan raffle for a spot on a preseason tour to Hungary and almost nobody bit at the offer. We say almost nobody, because four loyal fans paid the £10 entry fee. But on the whole it was a failure. So, Chesterfield decided to just pretend like it never happened. They never announced a winner and then when fans began to ask questions, like "who won the trip?" the club announced that the raffle had been won by "Surrey-based Spireite James Higgins." But this fan was a mystery. There was no record of his thrilling victory, or photo ops, or gleeful tweets.

Advertisement

The team jets off for Hungary. A die hard fan travels to the game - and there's no sign of James or indeed any fan with the official party..
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Rumours start to circulate on the message board. Where is James, is he ok? Questions are raised to the club…
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Next communication from the club: James was too ill to travel. Hmm. #prayforhiggins begins to trend…
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Poor James. Very unfortunate. Some might say convenient. Then the club said anyone who'd bought a ticket could be refunded if they asked…
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Why? asked the fans. Why would they offer a refund on a legit raffle draw, just cos the winner fell ill?
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Social media searches failed to throw up any mention of James. Meanwhile, the club deleted the illness story from the website…
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Here it is, by the way… pic.twitter.com/YASFnI9L2G
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Supporters becoming a bit frustrated at this point. It *appears* the club charged £10 a pop, made about £50 so decided to scrap the idea
— Jonno Turner (@jonnot) July 19, 2016

Finally, after all of this was spiraling out of control, the club's director and company secretary Ashley Carson released a statement acknowledging the whole fiasco and appearing to confirm the suspicion that the club just invented a supporter to avoid embarrassment and figured no one was going to miss some £50. Carson says they were provided false information:

Advertisement

I have discovered that a winning entry was not legitimate and the information supplied to the club's communications department had clearly been falsified with regards to the winner of a place at the pre-season training camp.

Fortunately, no supporters have been affected financially or inconvenienced.

However, the club has a zero tolerance approach to such misleading activities and we remain committed to supporting our supporters on every level, which includes transparency and clear communications.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the supporter who contacted me personally about his concerns, which ultimately led to the enquiry.

Chesterfield Football Club apologises unreservedly to the four supporters who entered the competition and we can assure all supporters that following the internal review, disciplinary action will be taken.

It's not clear how they know the information was falsified, but not the identity of the falsifier, but this is a pretty standard passive voice non-apology apology. But how many teams can say they invented a fan out of thin air? That's good to be good for something.