{"id":437321,"date":"2025-09-20T00:37:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/437321\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T00:37:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:37:53","slug":"louis-tomlinson-duped-by-criminals-in-multi-million-doncaster-rovers-fraud-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/437321\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Tomlinson duped by criminals in multi-million Doncaster Rovers fraud plot"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Direction star Louis Tomlinson was the face of the failed takeover of Doncaster Rovers, but the pop legend was duped by a gang of fraudsters involved in the bid<\/p>\n

20:22, 19 Sep 2025Updated 21:22, 19 Sep 2025<\/p>\n

\"LouisLouis Tomlinson was duped by fraudsters during a takeover bid for Doncaster Rovers FC(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

As the public face of a takeover of his boyhood club, Louis Tomlinson<\/a> hoped he could help it become a football powerhouse.<\/p>\n

But the One Direction<\/a> singer was unaware some of the investors were a gang of pension fraudsters who fleeced millions of pounds from people\u2019s retirement nest eggs. It can be revealed today that Kevin Phelan, Daniel Giles and Adrian Bashforth were convicted last month and face \u201csignificant\u201d jail sentences. Prosecutors said the Doncaster<\/a> deal was used by the crooks to try to cover their tracks and explain away to police the missing cash. Their trial at Leeds crown court heard how Louis became involved with the gang in 2014 through the club\u2019s former chairman John Ryan.<\/p>\n

\"LouisA court heard how Louis became involved with the gang in 2014 through the club\u2019s former chairman John Ryan (pictured)(Image: Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

He launched a crowdfunder aimed at raising \u00a36million of investment for the takeover from his 36 million X followers and 20 million online fans.<\/p>\n

The fraudsters met him at his Cheshire home at the peak of 1D\u2019s band\u2019s fame in 2014. He invited several of the 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\u2019s funds was \u201cstolen pension money\u201d, the court heard.<\/p>\n

\"LouisThere is no suggestion Louis knew about the gang’s pension fraud(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

But the crowdfunder raised just \u00a3600,000 and most of that was from a company run by one member of the fraud gang, a \u00a3500,000 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.<\/p>\n

The court heard Doncaster was insolvent and supported by millions of pounds worth of loans from Ryan and other investors. Two attempts were made that year to buy the club by Sequentia Capital SA, but both collapsed.<\/p>\n

\"LouisJohn Ryan and Louis Tomlinson(Image: Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

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 \u201cpublic face\u201d while Sequentia was \u201ca silent participant, behind the scenes\u201d. Phelan, 62, met the singer at his home in January 2014 to discuss his role if the deal went through.<\/p>\n

Giles, texted that day: \u201cI\u2019ve been interrogated for the last few hours over 1D boy. Kids want to come to the next meeting mate. I\u2019m thinking 16 million brainwashed followers. Very very interesting. Let\u2019s crack on now together and build a nice fighting fund.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KevinKevin Phelan outside court(Image: CHRIS NEILL)<\/p>\n

Louis agreed to take a 10% stake in the club in exchange for his support in the takeover with -ambitious plans to take Doncaster to the Premier League<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The star would attend matches and training, host a special \u201cLouis\u2019s Room\u201d support club, write a football blog and even consider a one-off One Direction concert at the club\u2019s -Keepmoat Stadium. Louis and Ryan\u2019s ownership would be 10% each, Sequentia\u2019s 70% and 5% would belong to supporters.<\/p>\n

Louis met Phelan and Giles, 51, at a One Direction concert in Dublin\u2019s Coke Park to sign the deal. But the poor response to the crowdfunder, it was scrapped and donations returned. Sequentia did not have the money to complete the deal, the court heard, and Phelan\u2019s promises of having \u00a320m of funding was empty.<\/p>\n

\"LouisDoncaster Rovers is Louis Tomlinson’s childhood club(Image: Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

Louis said at the time: \u201cI\u2019m 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no suggestion Louis or Ryan knew about the pension fraud. At the gang\u2019s trial, prosecutor Timothy Hannam KC said: \u201cThese defendants nicked money from people\u2019s life savings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over two years \u00a33.7m had been \u201cliberated\u201d by the crooks from the pension pots of more than 200 victims, who received just \u00a31.3m. They will be sentenced in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Direction star Louis Tomlinson was the face of the failed takeover of Doncaster Rovers, but the pop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2208,2209,148157,16828,13,148158,559,12,4099,617,101,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-437321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-court-case","9":"tag-crown-court","10":"tag-doncaster-rovers-fc","11":"tag-football-league-one","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-john-ryan","14":"tag-louis-tomlinson","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-one-direction","17":"tag-pensions","18":"tag-premier-league","19":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115233837543173282","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}