Against the run of play

Here’s a very sad tale from BBC News – and a salutary one for all of us that have rolled our eyes on receiving yet another 419 scam email. It’s a story of how Nigerian fraudsters are preying on the hopes of young African footballers with largely unrealistic dreams of making it big:

Nigerian football conmen exposed

One gang which was confronted pretended to be Manchester United officials working with manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Another conman was impersonating the chief talent scout for Chelsea to trick naive teenagers into wiring him cash.

Victims are often duped into sending money in the false belief that they are paying official registration fees to have a trial to play for their favourite English Premier League clubs.

The fraudsters simply pocket the money and disappear. Read full story here…