A football coach for an under 10s side plundered thousands of pounds raised by parents to send their excited children to a dream football tournament in Barcelona and spent it gambling on online roulette.
Michael Grisedale, 39, had claimed he was organising a once in a lifetime opportunity for his young team to play in the Spanish competition The Barcelona Experience in Salou, and took thousands from parents for fees, hotel costs and airport transfers.
But instead father-of-two Grisedale – who was out of work at the time – secretly stole £6,401.39 and began paying his day-to-day bills and expenses with it, before gambling the rest away in virtual casinos.
The alarm was only raised three days before the competition was due to start, when a hotel in the Spanish city where the team were due to stay contacted one of the parents to inform them the reservation had been cancelled due to non payment.
When quizzed Grisedale, who ran the under 10s Vauxhall Astra team in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and whose own son played in the squad, claimed there had not been enough cash available to pay for the trip and he gambled it away in a doomed bid to raise the extra money.
The devastated children were only able to make the trip to Salou after wellwishers raised the money via GoFundMe when news of Grisedale’s betrayal spread throughout the town.
He subsequently moved 80 miles to Blackpool, Lancashire on the advice of police. It emerged he had even stolen £200 given towards the trip by his own girlfriend. The team has since been disbanded.
In a statement, one parent, Tony Davies said: ‘When I discovered that Michael had stolen money from the team I was shocked, angry and betrayed.
‘We only found out from a phone call from the hotel in Barcelona. I believe if we had not been called from the hotel the whole team would have travelled out leaving us stranded in Barcelona.
‘The emotional impact has been significant. I’ve worked tirelessly to raise money for the trip and the thefts have had a profound impact on the team.
‘My reputation with sponsors has been damaged and any further fundraising has been damaged. The team folded just a few weeks into the new season I am deeply hurt and disappointed by Michael’s actions.
‘The betrayal of trust has caused irreparable harm.’
Mother Hannah Parry said: ‘Michael caused emotional distress in the first instance when we discovered what he had done.
‘We considered him as a friend and my son loved him as a football coach – but I had the distress of telling our son that the trip was not going ahead. I’m now apprehensive when asked for money – as it’s harder to trust people’s words on face value.’
At Chester Crown Court, Grisedale pleaded guilty to 11 charges of theft and was sentenced to 24 months in jail suspended for two years with requirements he completes 150 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity.
He must also pays back the money he stole to his victims.
Oliver Saddington, prosecuting, said: ‘The defendant was the team manager of an under 10s football team, called the Vauxhall Astras, who play at Vauxhall Social Club in the Ellesmere Port area.
‘He was responsible for the coaching, arranging of games and tournaments and in June 2023, he saw a Facebook advertisement for a grassroots football tournament for children called The Barcelona Experience in Salou.
‘Following this, the defendant arranged and organised this trip for between April 9 and April 12, 2024.
‘The handling of the money and the financial side was managed solely by him. The cost per player was £329 and an additional £275 for parents wishing to attend.
‘Included in that was payment for the tournament, accommodation, breakfast and evening meals and transfers to and from the airport.
‘Any individual wishing to attend was to arrange their own flights. Money was obtained by parents or sponsorship campaigns completed by the children.
‘But on April 6, 2024, Dean Carruthers, one of the parents of the children, received a phone call from the Hotel del Marinda to ask whether he still wanted to stay in the hotel as the original booking had been cancelled.
‘Mr Carruthers was then provided the details for a man who runs the tournament in Spain who advised he hadn’t received the money from the defendant and the trip had been cancelled.
‘When Mr Carruthers attempted to phone the defendant for an explanation but he did not answer and he reached out to the other parents to tell them what he had found out.’
Grisedale was later traced via his girlfriend. He said he was sorry, admitted he had ‘messed up’ and asked her to tell his son he ‘loved him.’ He was arrested in the Kent area on April 9.
Mr Saddington added: ‘He made frank admissions to all offences. He accepted that he organised the Barcelona Experience trip and accepted that his partner had paid a £200 deposit but said he began to panic when they hadn’t raised enough to cover the costs.
‘He claimed he began to gamble his own money to try and make it up.
‘There was emotional distress to the children but thankfully they were able in the end to travel to Salou for the tournament as a result of crowdfunding.’
In mitigation for Grisedale, who now works in a supermarket, defence counsel Nicholas Williams said his client had since scraped together £1,500 to pay back some of the money.
‘This has been a dramatic fall from grace for Mr Grisedale,’ said Mr Williams.
‘He had been the manager of an under 10s football team that he set up, managing, coaching children, at that time which included his young son, all done on a voluntary basis for the benefit of the children in the community, only to be known as a thief who stole money from the children’s football trip fund.
‘It has to be accepted stealing money in this way from those children, as in effect he did, was a particularly mean thing to do.
‘Clearly it was an upsetting thing for the children – and it was only through the generosity of others that they managed to go on the trip at all but no thanks to this defendant. He knows there is no excuse, he has not tried to provide any.’
Mr Williams said Grisedale had originally offered to pay the tournament costs but when he realised it was unrealistic he arranged for ‘payment plans’ to cover the costs.
‘Unfortunately, at that time Mr Grisedale was out of work and had no independent income. The temptation to dip into the money he was entrusted to look after became too great.
‘The dipping into this fund at the outset was at least done with the complete intention of paying it back.
‘It was not for an extravagant lifestyle but to pay for day-to-day bills and expenses – however as time went on it became apparent that he did not have the money to pay it all back.
‘He then made what was a fundamentally stupid decision to try and gamble his way out of the predicament he found himself in. Of course it never worked as gambling never does. The more he took, the more he lost until all the money was gone.
‘He recognises now how foolish the decision was to try and gamble that money was. He buried his head in the sand trying to make the money back and was panicking. He did not want to let the children down but ultimately that his what he has done. ‘
Sentencing Grisedale Judge Natalie Cuddy told him: ‘The money paid to you by the parents, was I anticipate something of a significant stretch for some of them.
‘There have been significant efforts to raise that money through parents’ contributions but also fundraising by children themselves and sponsorship.
‘But I am told that you have a significant gambling problem and you showed a complete disregard for the trust placed in you by the victims of your offending.
‘The children would have very much been looking forward to the trip, I have no doubt but thankfully and due to the generosity of people in the community they were able to go.
‘However the excitement and the enjoyment of that must have been for those families very much diminished by the shadow of your offending and what happened to the money that they had paid to you.’
