Ex-footballers jailed over shameful £5million sports leadership scheme scam
Former Wales international Mark Aizlewood, 58, and Paul Sugrue, 56, whose past clubs include Manchester City, were jailed for a total of 13 years
TWO ex-footballers have been jailed for 13 years for taking part in a £5million education scam.
Former Wales star Mark Aizlewood, 58, and ex- Man City striker Paul Sugrue, 56, ran a firm claiming to offer apprenticeships at pro clubs.
They billed colleges, which claimed the money back through the public purse.
But many of the students on their books did not even exist, Southwark crown court heard.
They told colleges across the country they would provide full-time training in football coaching as well as work experience and a £95 weekly stipend to 3,800 students.
Some of the bogus students were sourced from a summer football camp run by Harper, who secretly enrolled students to apprenticeships without their knowledge or consent.
Aizlewood denied any wrongdoing, telling the jury he had been preoccupied by his late wife's spiralling mental health problems before her suicide in June last year.
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He told the court he had neither the "time or inclination" to carry out such a complex fraud during the period.
Aizlewood, of Aberdare, South Wales, got six years and Sugrue, of Cardiff, seven years after being convicted of fraud.
Four others got a total of 12½ years in jail.