Youth soccer team missing $40K and head coach, EPS investigating

An U-11 soccer team won't be able to attend a soccer tournament after their coach and money disappeared. David Ewasuk reports.

A boys soccer team from Edmonton is reeling after finding out they won’t be attending an upcoming tournament, despite fundraising for more than two years.

Lauren and Adam Scorgie say their son Beckham’s U-11 team, Selects Football Club, was supposed to leave for the tournament in Las Vegas, Nev., early Friday morning.

On Monday, they found out the team wasn’t registered for the tournament and that flights or hotel rooms were not booked.

The money that was raised to pay for the registration, flights and accommodation – approximately $40,000 – was missing. The team’s coach was also missing.

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“We didn’t see our name on the Las Vegas tournament website and for some reason our team had no game scheduled,” Lauren told CTV News Edmonton on Wednesday.

Parents say they haven’t been able to get a hold of the coach since Monday.

“I started calling around. I called the tournament, the hotel and the airline.”

“They said, ‘We have no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve never heard from him. He’s never registered.’”

The team has filed a report with the Edmonton Police Service, who confirmed to CTV News Edmonton a fraud investigation is underway.

“We’re just going through all of the bank statements with the police right now and just adding everything up, but it’s roughly just under $40,000,” Lauren said.

“We were lucky. We caught it. We have about $5,000 to $10,000 left in the account, which we froze.”

The couple says the hardest part was breaking the news to their son and his teammates that they weren’t going to the tournament.

“At first when they told me, I didn’t really think much of it. I just thought they were trying to play a prank on us,” Beckham said.

“Then I found out the next day that it was actually real, and we weren’t gonna be going to Vegas.”

“I had a few tears, not a great moment.”

“Many of them have never even been to the States. They had to get passports organized. They booked extra days [to do] all things they’d never done before to find out that this isn’t happening,” Adam said.

“These kids have worked two-and-a-half years, hundreds of bottle drives in -20 C, thousands of boxes of chocolate, pub nights.”

The Edmonton Minor Soccer Association says it is awaiting the conclusion of the police investigation before they provide a comment.

A GoFundMe started for the team had raised more than $55,000 of a $50,000 fundraising goal as of 3 p.m. on Thursday.

“The team has not only met their goal, they’ve exceeded their goal, and they’ve raised $54,4742 on 724 donations,” Adam told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday afternoon.

“These kids are going to get their opportunity to go to Vegas. They can’t go this year, unfortunately, because the tournament schedules are full.”

One of the notable donors to the GoFundMe included Evander Kane of the Edmonton Oilers.

“He put in $4,000 which is just incredible. Sent him a message last night. Thanked him,” Adam said, adding the team is also looking at going to a different tournament in Minnesota in June so the kids don’t have to wait a full extra year to chase their dream.

The team plans to attend the next Las Vegas tournament in October, and donate any leftover funds back to the soccer community, Lauren said.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s David Ewasuk