Sad story. I'm not at all surprised about his church being both enthusiastic about this initially and conned. The only people I know who are enthusiastic about FX trading as a way to make money all seem to be members of evangelical churches. Appreciate that some people do it as a living, but I think city institutions doing it they will have hedges, someone doing it with their life savings won't. There are no shortcuts to making money and all investment comes with risk, but I see the attraction of believing that there are shortcuts and you can have a better life, all that prosperity gospel malarkey.
He done £7.4m trading a £15m pot, he's done better than the traders I know who've been wiped out and done the lot.
and 'Analysis of his finances showed Rufus spent £300,000 on himself, including payments for travel, car finance, restaurants and shopping' over what period of time 5 years , 5 weeks ? was he supposed to stop living whilst trading and losing ... He would have earned a fair wedge as a footballer , think he may have turned down a move to Spurs whilst with us ....
none of this adds up , lots of headlines
as if kind hearted Elliott was just being kind to his associates , he'd have been taking a piece of that action no doubt ....
What kind of wage would he have been on with us? Obviously good by the average person standards but i doubt it was a fortune.
And remember he was retired before he was 30, which was almost 20 years ago.
He done £7.4m trading a £15m pot, he's done better than the traders I know who've been wiped out and done the lot.
and 'Analysis of his finances showed Rufus spent £300,000 on himself, including payments for travel, car finance, restaurants and shopping' over what period of time 5 years , 5 weeks ? was he supposed to stop living whilst trading and losing ... He would have earned a fair wedge as a footballer , think he may have turned down a move to Spurs whilst with us ....
none of this adds up , lots of headlines
as if kind hearted Elliott was just being kind to his associates , he'd have been taking a piece of that action no doubt ....
What kind of wage would he have been on with us? Obviously good by the average person standards but i doubt it was a fortune.
And remember he was retired before he was 30, which was almost 20 years ago.
I think you’re probably right - his last contract with us was probably before anyone was earning serious money. I’m sure it was still good comparative to the average wage at the time, but nothing like Premier League wages today.
He done £7.4m trading a £15m pot, he's done better than the traders I know who've been wiped out and done the lot.
and 'Analysis of his finances showed Rufus spent £300,000 on himself, including payments for travel, car finance, restaurants and shopping' over what period of time 5 years , 5 weeks ? was he supposed to stop living whilst trading and losing ... He would have earned a fair wedge as a footballer , think he may have turned down a move to Spurs whilst with us ....
none of this adds up , lots of headlines
as if kind hearted Elliott was just being kind to his associates , he'd have been taking a piece of that action no doubt ....
What kind of wage would he have been on with us? Obviously good by the average person standards but i doubt it was a fortune.
And remember he was retired before he was 30, which was almost 20 years ago.
Retired footballers would normally kick in a pension?
He done £7.4m trading a £15m pot, he's done better than the traders I know who've been wiped out and done the lot.
and 'Analysis of his finances showed Rufus spent £300,000 on himself, including payments for travel, car finance, restaurants and shopping' over what period of time 5 years , 5 weeks ? was he supposed to stop living whilst trading and losing ... He would have earned a fair wedge as a footballer , think he may have turned down a move to Spurs whilst with us ....
none of this adds up , lots of headlines
as if kind hearted Elliott was just being kind to his associates , he'd have been taking a piece of that action no doubt ....
What kind of wage would he have been on with us? Obviously good by the average person standards but i doubt it was a fortune.
And remember he was retired before he was 30, which was almost 20 years ago.
Retired footballers would normally kick in a pension?
He done £7.4m trading a £15m pot, he's done better than the traders I know who've been wiped out and done the lot.
and 'Analysis of his finances showed Rufus spent £300,000 on himself, including payments for travel, car finance, restaurants and shopping' over what period of time 5 years , 5 weeks ? was he supposed to stop living whilst trading and losing ... He would have earned a fair wedge as a footballer , think he may have turned down a move to Spurs whilst with us ....
none of this adds up , lots of headlines
as if kind hearted Elliott was just being kind to his associates , he'd have been taking a piece of that action no doubt ....
What kind of wage would he have been on with us? Obviously good by the average person standards but i doubt it was a fortune.
And remember he was retired before he was 30, which was almost 20 years ago.
Retired footballers would normally kick in a pension?
Eddie Youds had a £1m payout when he retired injured Rufus must have been double that at least
Richard Rufus was ‘Mr Reliable’ – now he is in prison for £15m ‘pyramid scheme’
Twenty-five years ago on the famous turf of the old Wembley Stadium, Richard Rufus headed in a dramatic equaliser before his boyhood club Charlton Athletic went on to beat Sunderland on penalties in one of the all-time classic play-off finals, ensuring their promotion to the Premier League for the first time.
Charlton spent eight of the next nine seasons in the top flight, finishing as high as seventh and winning many games against the country’s biggest clubs under manager Alan Curbishley.
Rufus, a pacy and reliable central defender, was a linchpin of the side between 1993 and 2004, when his career was cut cruelly short by a knee injury. Charlton, now in League One, have fallen down the leagues since those days.
Rufus has had his own fall from grace. On Thursday, his 48th birthday, he showed little emotion sat in the dock at Southwark Crown Court as he was given a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence after being found guilty of a £15million ($18.3m) trading scam. He will have to serve half of this behind bars before being released on licence.
The court heard how Rufus duped the Kingsway International Christian Centre, friends and family members into handing him money while boasting of making “colossal sums” as a foreign exchange trader, promising them returns of up to 60 per cent a year. But the whole thing was a con, with Rufus using new investors’ money to fund early takers in what Judge Dafna Spiro called a “pyramid or Ponzi scheme” which led to people losing life-changing sums.
“Rufus used some of the £15million invested to pay back investors in a pyramid-style scheme — using funds from newer investors to pay back older ones — but used the rest to maintain a lifestyle of an elite professional footballer,” said Roger Makanjuola of the Crown Prosecution Service. “While making these huge losses he put approximately £2million into his personal accounts, allegedly for the purposes of investment but this was never transferred over to his trading account.”
This cash was spent on an expensive home in a gated community in Purley, south London, as well as a Bentley car and a Rolex watch. This cash came from the people he defrauded and the court heard testimonies from victims who had been financially and psychologically devastated by the scam.
The Athletic attended the sentencing at Southwark Crown Court and has spoken to people who remember Rufus from his playing days — including one former team-mate who fell victim to a separate investment scam.
Gavin Billenness is editor of Charlton fanzine My Only Desire Magazine and speaks to The Athletic the day after a trip to Old Trafford — once a regular destination for Charlton fans — where his side lost 3-0 in the Carabao Cup quarter-final on Tuesday.
The club are now two divisions below United in League One and fans think fondly of Rufus as a member of their golden generation in a team that had an unusually high number of players who stuck around for many years.
“He was Mr Reliable,” says Billenness.
Another person who vividly remembers Rufus the player is Steve Brown, a fellow defender who came through the Charlton academy three years ahead of Rufus. The two played together countless times, including in the Premier League, as well as that epic 1998 play-off final.
“He was quick, he was aggressive, and despite being wiry thin he was extremely strong in the challenge,” says Brown. “He wasn’t particularly good in possession but he was determined, strong, quick.., he could afford a mistake or two and could rectify it with this pace.”
Off the pitch, Brown describes Rufus as a “lively” youngster who enjoyed going out at the weekends without ever doing anything untoward.
This all changed in his early twenties when he became a born-again Christian. On the bus to away games, Rufus would read his Bible rather than play cards or watch DVDs, says Brown, who is quick to point out that Rufus did not “preach” to his team-mates and was generally a pleasant if quiet presence.
“I played with him for seven years but privately I wouldn’t be able to tell you too much about Richard’s life,” says Brown.
But after a knee injury cut Rufus’s career short at the age of 29, his interests off the pitch would soon lead him to a life of crime in the form of a pyramid scheme based on bogus foreign exchange trading — the buying and selling of foreign currency to make a profit. At the sentencing, the judge acknowledged that for a time Rufus did display a genuine interest in foreign exchange and made some successful trades, setting up an office with the relevant software and equipment, and receiving tuition in the United States.
Rufus was a regular for Charlton during their best period in the Premier League (Photo: Mike Egerton/EMPICS via Getty Images)
But his involvement in this risky world quickly became fraudulent, with Rufus telling the friends whose money he had invested that he was making returns as high as 60 per cent, producing documents with fictitious numbers. Rufus lied that he was working with top banks like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and that leading footballers, including former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand, were also investors.
“The people who invested did so in good faith — they believed your spiel because they thought you were the real deal,” said the judge. “You were living a lie at the expense of others.”
Rather than dwelling on happy memories such as Premier League wins against the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, Brown is keen to express his deep sympathy for the victims of Rufus’s fraud, seeing it as part of a wider problem in the game — including for him personally.
“Every footballer has been hoodwinked by somebody,” he says. “Anywhere there’s lots of money you’ll find vultures and sharks.”
After being recruited by a former team-mate whom he would rather not name, Brown himself fell victim to an investment scam.
“I got hoodwinked in a property deal that was not a property deal,” he recalls, saying he put £200,000 towards what was supposedly an exciting new opportunity in Spain. “I never saw my money again.”
Footballers have always been well paid but it is only recently that players at smaller clubs have earned eye-watering sums which can fund a lifetime of glamour. Brown is still feeling the pinch from that bogus investment, acutely aware that that sum would have comfortably doubled in the following two decades if it had been invested sensibly.
He is comfortably off but a long way from the current Premier League stars who, even as squad players at smaller clubs, earn sums that players at teams like Charlton around the turn of the millennium could only dream of.
“Football was in that transitional period,” says Brown. “It did filter down eventually but if you were in that 1995-2005 bracket, some people were very, very well paid but some people weren’t (in comparison).”
Brown says these sorts of scams are far more widespread than many might believe.
“Most people don’t want to say because they probably feel like a bit of an idiot,” he says. “They’re young men when these vultures come calling and the industry doesn’t do enough to protect them.
“It’s something I believe is far more common than the public know, and players don’t get enough protection or advice.”
Peter Varney was chief executive of Charlton Athletic between 1998 and 2008, the club’s glory years under Curbishley. Like Brown, Varney is very keen to express his sympathy for the victims of Rufus’s fraud.
“The whole thing is really sad,” he tells The Athletic. “It’s really sad for him because he’s chosen to go down this route, and it’s sad for all the people who lost their money.”
He says Rufus was a “model professional” as a Charlton player, though this of course will be little comfort to those who lost their fortunes.
Varney says he was aware of dubious financial schemes pitched at footballers in a period when English football was morphing from a thoroughly domestic affair into a glitzy global entertainment product.
After Charlton’s promotion, which coincided with the river of cash flowing through English football growing ever bigger, the number of scammers and chancers loitering around the squad also increased, says Varney.
“Once we went into the Premier League it was almost endless — friends, associates, and also agents, sometimes they benefit as much as the player from the investment,” he adds.
“[Someone] will go to a player and say, ‘I can turn that £1m into £2m in 12 months. Then they’ve lost £1m.”
Rufus, though, switched from potential fraud victim to fraudster himself. That is what the court heard as he was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court three weeks after being found guilty of fraud, money laundering and carrying out a regulated activity without authorisation.
Though the details of foreign exchange trading and the complexities of fraud law can be complicated, the essence of Rufus’s crimes was simple — he flagrantly lied about the returns from “investments” that were losing money, his lies getting bigger and bigger as he tried to cover for his losses, and funnelled the cash to himself.
“You lost vast sums but continued pouring more and more in,” the judge told Rufus in her closing remarks. “You were unable or unwilling to admit the losses, hiding the true picture and selling a lie.”
The court heard harrowing victim testimonies from those who had been defrauded by Rufus, including the Kingsway International Christian Centre where he had been involved for decades but ended up promising a church leader a lucrative return in exchange for a sum of money which was never returned.
Most disturbing were the stories of how people had been affected not just financially but emotionally and psychologically, struggling to trust other people after their experiences.
“I wish I’d never met Richard Rufus and I regret the day I did,” said one victim statement.
Another spoke about the loss of confidence after losing so much money, which affected his relationships as well as his reputation within his community to the point that he moved abroad for a fresh start.
The judge did highlight some cause for mitigation in Rufus’s sentencing, such as his Christian faith, his clean record up to this point, the fact the trading did start out as legitimate, and his extensive charity work, including with Charlton over the years.
But this had to be weighed up against the “dishonesty and betrayal” of Rufus’s crimes, which had a “serious detrimental effect” on his victims.
“Rufus acted in a selfish manner without any concern for his victims,” said Makanjuola. “He took advantage of his status as a professional athlete, a respected church member and he used the goodwill of his family and friends to scam them.”
(Top photo: Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)
How on earth did he plead not guilty?! Pretty damning evidence from what i've read.
Joke of a sentence though, i know it's not murder but no doubt this guy has still ruined lives. 7.5 years and probably out in less than 4 is pathetic.
Really ?
I've watched quite a few real life police shows & lots of scumbags get off very lightly. That recent one that was discussed on here when a bloke drove off after 2 lads on motorbikes who had stolen from his house & he rammed them leaking them crash. They had previous going back years & years & yet were out free. He got done for years. And how many times do you hear people who have no driving licence being banned (again) for driving offences. BANNED. Not locked up.
Rufus is no danger to the public & I hardly think he is going to do it again.
That was sickening. Think you're referring to the case on a recent 24 hrs in Police Custody.
Coincidentally the bloke who runs the recent cocktail thing at Charlton set up a Go Fund me page that raised £300k for the poor bloke.
How on earth did he plead not guilty?! Pretty damning evidence from what i've read.
Joke of a sentence though, i know it's not murder but no doubt this guy has still ruined lives. 7.5 years and probably out in less than 4 is pathetic.
Really ?
I've watched quite a few real life police shows & lots of scumbags get off very lightly. That recent one that was discussed on here when a bloke drove off after 2 lads on motorbikes who had stolen from his house & he rammed them leaking them crash. They had previous going back years & years & yet were out free. He got done for years. And how many times do you hear people who have no driving licence being banned (again) for driving offences. BANNED. Not locked up.
Rufus is no danger to the public & I hardly think he is going to do it again.
That was sickening. Think you're referring to the case on a recent 24 hrs in Police Custody.
Coincidentally the bloke who runs the recent cocktail thing at Charlton set up a Go Fund me page that raised £300k for the poor bloke.
Terrifying that he did time.
Terrifying for him maybe. Equally terrifying for any member of the public going about their business when he rammed those scumbags off the road at speed causing much carnage in the process.
Had he held his hands up to the offences the law of the land say he committed, he may well have avoided jail but he didn't.
He done £7.4m trading a £15m pot, he's done better than the traders I know who've been wiped out and done the lot.
and 'Analysis of his finances showed Rufus spent £300,000 on himself, including payments for travel, car finance, restaurants and shopping' over what period of time 5 years , 5 weeks ? was he supposed to stop living whilst trading and losing ... He would have earned a fair wedge as a footballer , think he may have turned down a move to Spurs whilst with us ....
none of this adds up , lots of headlines
as if kind hearted Elliott was just being kind to his associates , he'd have been taking a piece of that action no doubt ....
Rufus owned six properties at the time of bankruptcy. They were all mortgaged to the hilt but he would have originally put some equity into them at the time he purchased them because lenders do not offer100% mortgages on £2m main residents or buy to let properties. That suggests that he had some money from his playing days albeit that he might have lost all of that. He also had to have the income to service those loans - one assumes that he rented out all the properties bar his main residence but the rental income on those plus estate agency fees and cost of up keep might only have covered the monthly mortgage payments.
- The Dove, 19 The South Border, Purley, Surrey estimated to be £1.9 million. With a Bank of Scotland mortgage in the sum of £2,079,210;
- 19 Scawen Close, Carshalton, Surrey valued at £254,000. Mortgage held by Cheltenham & Gloucester in the sum of £257,079;
- 57A Woolstone Road, Forest Hill, London valued at £240,000, with a mortgage held by Bank of Ireland in the sum of £257,999;
- 57B Woolstone Road valued at £110,000, with the mortgage with Bank of Ireland standing at £112,935;
- 57C Woolstone Road valued at £195,000 and the Bank of Ireland mortgage standing at £199,787;
- 142 Salehurst Road, Brockley valued at £249,995. The £241,000 mortgage is held by the Mortgage Business.
Rufus accepted investor deposits of some £16,228,304m, with which he made £5,027,539 in losses through currency trading and paid out £7,362,094. The trading went on from 16 May 2007 to 11 February 2011, during which time Rufus also used £3,422,087 for his own or unknown purposes. So, the £300,000 is a drop in the ocean and he probably used a lot more for other purposes such as, for example, servicing the mortgage on his main residence. I would estimate that the monthly repayment on his home might have been in the region of £10,000 per month. Over that period of 48 months alone that comes to almost £500,000. That's now £800,000 in total without taking into account, as I say, the deposits that he put on the six properties - 25% equates to another £800,000. So we're now up to £1,600,000. Who knows what he originally lost of his own money trading? Perhaps that is why he felt the need to bring in investors. He might just have been a gambler on the money markets who thought that he could one day turn things around and get back what he had lost. That is what some gamblers do.
There might be more to this but we really do not know whether Elliott was on some sort of kick back for introducing people. Let's not forget that Rufus sued Elliott for mentioning Rufus in his resignation letter from Kick It Out - Rufus complained implied he acted disloyally and affected his reputation by leaking to the Press a text from Elliott in which Elliott used the "n" word. But who leaked that exchanged of texts to the Press? It certainly wasn't in Elliott's interest to do so was it? Elliott appealed arguing that someone’s conduct cannot be considered reprehensibly disloyal when it led to the public exposure of wrongdoing by another. He also argued that there is a necessary link between what is defamatory and what is (un)lawful. But Elliott still lost. At no point did Rufus mention Elliott's involvement in the scam. Elliott was a witness for the prosecution though another victim refers to Elliott being at the meeting with Rufus. We might never know the truth but the reality is that it is Rufus who has been found guilty and yet denied he was responsible. God was going to the judge him. Perhaps Rufus still believes that.
How’s Rufus getting a mortgage worth more than his properties on all of them .. that’s bizarre he’s managed to hoodwink the banks as well when I have to do cartwheels to get £500 of my own money out in cash
He done £7.4m trading a £15m pot, he's done better than the traders I know who've been wiped out and done the lot.
and 'Analysis of his finances showed Rufus spent £300,000 on himself, including payments for travel, car finance, restaurants and shopping' over what period of time 5 years , 5 weeks ? was he supposed to stop living whilst trading and losing ... He would have earned a fair wedge as a footballer , think he may have turned down a move to Spurs whilst with us ....
none of this adds up , lots of headlines
as if kind hearted Elliott was just being kind to his associates , he'd have been taking a piece of that action no doubt ....
What kind of wage would he have been on with us? Obviously good by the average person standards but i doubt it was a fortune.
And remember he was retired before he was 30, which was almost 20 years ago.
Retired footballers would normally kick in a pension?
Eddie Youds had a £1m payout when he retired injured Rufus must have been double that at least
And Eddie got involved in property working for an Estate Agents.
How’s Rufus getting a mortgage worth more than his properties on all of them .. that’s bizarre he’s managed to hoodwink the banks as well when I have to do cartwheels to get £500 of my own money out in cash
Because when he took out the mortgages the values of the properties were higher than they are now - value reduction because of market movement now sees the mortgages in negative equity
How’s Rufus getting a mortgage worth more than his properties on all of them .. that’s bizarre he’s managed to hoodwink the banks as well when I have to do cartwheels to get £500 of my own money out in cash
Because when he took out the mortgages the values of the properties were higher than they are now - value reduction because of market movement now sees the mortgages in negative equity
They would not have mortgaged fully surely in one hit without huge percentages of value put down (to give them cover for a house pricing dump )
Which year was bankruptcy , no way the market dumped 25-30% ?
How’s Rufus getting a mortgage worth more than his properties on all of them .. that’s bizarre he’s managed to hoodwink the banks as well when I have to do cartwheels to get £500 of my own money out in cash
Because when he took out the mortgages the values of the properties were higher than they are now - value reduction because of market movement now sees the mortgages in negative equity
They would not have mortgaged fully surely in one hit without huge percentages of value put down (to give them cover for a house pricing dump )
Which year was bankruptcy , no way the market dumped 25-30% ?
Depends when he took out the mortgages - if they were pre 2007, then probably very high loan to value e.g. over 90%
I should of also said that he probably hasn’t been servicing them for quite some time, so unpaid interest is being added to the mortgages, so that will also see them go higher than current values
I got a 110% mortgage with Northern Rock for a client in the early 2000's.
So the Crash of Northern Rock and the troubles that caused the Halifax, leading to disastrous decision by Lloyds to take them over, Was all your fault…… !
I got a 110% mortgage with Northern Rock for a client in the early 2000's.
Those days were utter madness - lier’s loans (self certificated mortgages), 110% mortgages etc etc - I met a bloke years ago who worked for Co Op Bank - he was part of the team that went to look at the books of Britannia Building Society after Co Op Bank bought Britannia - they found that 90% of mortgages on Britannia’s books were broker led, and that Britannia staff had never met any of these clients, it was all controlled by the brokers - when the delved deeper they realised that Co Op Bank had basically bought a load of shite, and Co Op Bank was fooked
The Big Short is one of my favourite films, and lays out the madness of those times
I got a 110% mortgage with Northern Rock for a client in the early 2000's.
So the Crash of Northern Rock and the troubles that caused the Halifax, leading to disastrous decision by Lloyds to take them over, Was all your fault…… !
Lloyds were coerced by Government to take them over
What puzzles me is that the scheme took place AGES ago, between 2007 and 2010, yet it's taken over a decade for Rufus to be tried.
Fraud cases are nearly always lengthy and complex. For example, I met up with an old work colleague last month and he told me one case I worked on was still live with investigations on-going. And I quit in 2006!
That's extreme but there is so much evidence to gather, people to interview, devices to mirror and examine, phone records to review, bank statements to obtain and analyse. You need copies of everything, nothing can be left to chance. One case I knew about, it took over two years just to scan in all the documents, let alone analyse them.
In addition, Rufus' case was badly held up in the judicial process because of the backlogs caused by COVID. (Cases such as this need a specialist judge, and counsel for both sides and their diaries are always full.)
What puzzles me is that the scheme took place AGES ago, between 2007 and 2010, yet it's taken over a decade for Rufus to be tried.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, read Private Eye. The city section is full of stories of fraud - massive fraud - that never goes to court, so for it to happen at all is fairly unusual.
How’s Rufus getting a mortgage worth more than his properties on all of them .. that’s bizarre he’s managed to hoodwink the banks as well when I have to do cartwheels to get £500 of my own money out in cash
Because when he took out the mortgages the values of the properties were higher than they are now - value reduction because of market movement now sees the mortgages in negative equity
According to Rightmove, his main residence was purchased in 16/01/03 for £1,831,500 - that would have been when Rufus bought it as he is shown as living there in 2003. It was sold on 02/06/17 for £1,780,000 so substantially less than the valuation of £1,900,000 at the time that his bankruptcy was registered. So, there is absolutely no way that the mortgage of £2,079,210 was taken out when he bought the property in 2003. I suspect that he kept re-mortgaging to raise the deposits to purchase the five buy to let properties. And then the market went the other way.
Rufus retired in 2004 but his last game was on 21/04/03 - just three months after he purchased his main residence. Buying property was, clearly, his first avenue for extra income and investment. He then found something far more exciting in the money markets that he might have had initial success in but wasn't, ultimately, qualified or good at trading in. But he had to find a way of funding his lifestyle and the hefty mortgages he had on those half a dozen properties which he couldn't sell without making a loss and he didn't have the capital to cover those debts anyway. And so the slippery slope which culminated in committing fraud began.
Rufus in his prime was arguably the best Charlton player I’ve ever seen play not to get a full International cap. Also a great club servant so such a shame how things have panned out.
Comments
There are no shortcuts to making money and all investment comes with risk, but I see the attraction of believing that there are shortcuts and you can have a better life, all that prosperity gospel malarkey.
And remember he was retired before he was 30, which was almost 20 years ago.
a crime against the people is the worst, sad when your idols turn out like this
who’d have thought 25 years ago that unassuming Richard Rufus would turn out a wrong ‘un and hooligan Lee Bowyer a righteous hero
Rufus must have been double that at least
From The Athletic...
Richard Rufus was ‘Mr Reliable’ – now he is in prison for £15m ‘pyramid scheme’
Twenty-five years ago on the famous turf of the old Wembley Stadium, Richard Rufus headed in a dramatic equaliser before his boyhood club Charlton Athletic went on to beat Sunderland on penalties in one of the all-time classic play-off finals, ensuring their promotion to the Premier League for the first time.
Charlton spent eight of the next nine seasons in the top flight, finishing as high as seventh and winning many games against the country’s biggest clubs under manager Alan Curbishley.
Rufus, a pacy and reliable central defender, was a linchpin of the side between 1993 and 2004, when his career was cut cruelly short by a knee injury. Charlton, now in League One, have fallen down the leagues since those days.
Rufus has had his own fall from grace. On Thursday, his 48th birthday, he showed little emotion sat in the dock at Southwark Crown Court as he was given a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence after being found guilty of a £15million ($18.3m) trading scam. He will have to serve half of this behind bars before being released on licence.
The court heard how Rufus duped the Kingsway International Christian Centre, friends and family members into handing him money while boasting of making “colossal sums” as a foreign exchange trader, promising them returns of up to 60 per cent a year. But the whole thing was a con, with Rufus using new investors’ money to fund early takers in what Judge Dafna Spiro called a “pyramid or Ponzi scheme” which led to people losing life-changing sums.
“Rufus used some of the £15million invested to pay back investors in a pyramid-style scheme — using funds from newer investors to pay back older ones — but used the rest to maintain a lifestyle of an elite professional footballer,” said Roger Makanjuola of the Crown Prosecution Service. “While making these huge losses he put approximately £2million into his personal accounts, allegedly for the purposes of investment but this was never transferred over to his trading account.”
This cash was spent on an expensive home in a gated community in Purley, south London, as well as a Bentley car and a Rolex watch. This cash came from the people he defrauded and the court heard testimonies from victims who had been financially and psychologically devastated by the scam.
The Athletic attended the sentencing at Southwark Crown Court and has spoken to people who remember Rufus from his playing days — including one former team-mate who fell victim to a separate investment scam.
Gavin Billenness is editor of Charlton fanzine My Only Desire Magazine and speaks to The Athletic the day after a trip to Old Trafford — once a regular destination for Charlton fans — where his side lost 3-0 in the Carabao Cup quarter-final on Tuesday.
The club are now two divisions below United in League One and fans think fondly of Rufus as a member of their golden generation in a team that had an unusually high number of players who stuck around for many years.
“He was Mr Reliable,” says Billenness.
Another person who vividly remembers Rufus the player is Steve Brown, a fellow defender who came through the Charlton academy three years ahead of Rufus. The two played together countless times, including in the Premier League, as well as that epic 1998 play-off final.
“He was quick, he was aggressive, and despite being wiry thin he was extremely strong in the challenge,” says Brown. “He wasn’t particularly good in possession but he was determined, strong, quick.., he could afford a mistake or two and could rectify it with this pace.”
Off the pitch, Brown describes Rufus as a “lively” youngster who enjoyed going out at the weekends without ever doing anything untoward.
This all changed in his early twenties when he became a born-again Christian. On the bus to away games, Rufus would read his Bible rather than play cards or watch DVDs, says Brown, who is quick to point out that Rufus did not “preach” to his team-mates and was generally a pleasant if quiet presence.
“I played with him for seven years but privately I wouldn’t be able to tell you too much about Richard’s life,” says Brown.
But after a knee injury cut Rufus’s career short at the age of 29, his interests off the pitch would soon lead him to a life of crime in the form of a pyramid scheme based on bogus foreign exchange trading — the buying and selling of foreign currency to make a profit. At the sentencing, the judge acknowledged that for a time Rufus did display a genuine interest in foreign exchange and made some successful trades, setting up an office with the relevant software and equipment, and receiving tuition in the United States.
But his involvement in this risky world quickly became fraudulent, with Rufus telling the friends whose money he had invested that he was making returns as high as 60 per cent, producing documents with fictitious numbers. Rufus lied that he was working with top banks like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and that leading footballers, including former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand, were also investors.
“The people who invested did so in good faith — they believed your spiel because they thought you were the real deal,” said the judge. “You were living a lie at the expense of others.”
Rather than dwelling on happy memories such as Premier League wins against the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, Brown is keen to express his deep sympathy for the victims of Rufus’s fraud, seeing it as part of a wider problem in the game — including for him personally.
“Every footballer has been hoodwinked by somebody,” he says. “Anywhere there’s lots of money you’ll find vultures and sharks.”
After being recruited by a former team-mate whom he would rather not name, Brown himself fell victim to an investment scam.
“I got hoodwinked in a property deal that was not a property deal,” he recalls, saying he put £200,000 towards what was supposedly an exciting new opportunity in Spain. “I never saw my money again.”
Footballers have always been well paid but it is only recently that players at smaller clubs have earned eye-watering sums which can fund a lifetime of glamour. Brown is still feeling the pinch from that bogus investment, acutely aware that that sum would have comfortably doubled in the following two decades if it had been invested sensibly.
He is comfortably off but a long way from the current Premier League stars who, even as squad players at smaller clubs, earn sums that players at teams like Charlton around the turn of the millennium could only dream of.
“Football was in that transitional period,” says Brown. “It did filter down eventually but if you were in that 1995-2005 bracket, some people were very, very well paid but some people weren’t (in comparison).”
Brown says these sorts of scams are far more widespread than many might believe.
“Most people don’t want to say because they probably feel like a bit of an idiot,” he says. “They’re young men when these vultures come calling and the industry doesn’t do enough to protect them.
“It’s something I believe is far more common than the public know, and players don’t get enough protection or advice.”
Peter Varney was chief executive of Charlton Athletic between 1998 and 2008, the club’s glory years under Curbishley. Like Brown, Varney is very keen to express his sympathy for the victims of Rufus’s fraud.
“The whole thing is really sad,” he tells The Athletic. “It’s really sad for him because he’s chosen to go down this route, and it’s sad for all the people who lost their money.”
He says Rufus was a “model professional” as a Charlton player, though this of course will be little comfort to those who lost their fortunes.
Varney says he was aware of dubious financial schemes pitched at footballers in a period when English football was morphing from a thoroughly domestic affair into a glitzy global entertainment product.
After Charlton’s promotion, which coincided with the river of cash flowing through English football growing ever bigger, the number of scammers and chancers loitering around the squad also increased, says Varney.
“Once we went into the Premier League it was almost endless — friends, associates, and also agents, sometimes they benefit as much as the player from the investment,” he adds.
“[Someone] will go to a player and say, ‘I can turn that £1m into £2m in 12 months. Then they’ve lost £1m.”
Rufus, though, switched from potential fraud victim to fraudster himself. That is what the court heard as he was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court three weeks after being found guilty of fraud, money laundering and carrying out a regulated activity without authorisation.
Though the details of foreign exchange trading and the complexities of fraud law can be complicated, the essence of Rufus’s crimes was simple — he flagrantly lied about the returns from “investments” that were losing money, his lies getting bigger and bigger as he tried to cover for his losses, and funnelled the cash to himself.
“You lost vast sums but continued pouring more and more in,” the judge told Rufus in her closing remarks. “You were unable or unwilling to admit the losses, hiding the true picture and selling a lie.”
The court heard harrowing victim testimonies from those who had been defrauded by Rufus, including the Kingsway International Christian Centre where he had been involved for decades but ended up promising a church leader a lucrative return in exchange for a sum of money which was never returned.
Most disturbing were the stories of how people had been affected not just financially but emotionally and psychologically, struggling to trust other people after their experiences.
“I wish I’d never met Richard Rufus and I regret the day I did,” said one victim statement.
Another spoke about the loss of confidence after losing so much money, which affected his relationships as well as his reputation within his community to the point that he moved abroad for a fresh start.
The judge did highlight some cause for mitigation in Rufus’s sentencing, such as his Christian faith, his clean record up to this point, the fact the trading did start out as legitimate, and his extensive charity work, including with Charlton over the years.
But this had to be weighed up against the “dishonesty and betrayal” of Rufus’s crimes, which had a “serious detrimental effect” on his victims.
“Rufus acted in a selfish manner without any concern for his victims,” said Makanjuola. “He took advantage of his status as a professional athlete, a respected church member and he used the goodwill of his family and friends to scam them.”
(Top photo: Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)
That was sickening. Think you're referring to the case on a recent 24 hrs in Police Custody.
Coincidentally the bloke who runs the recent cocktail thing at Charlton set up a Go Fund me page that raised £300k for the poor bloke.
Terrifying that he did time.
Had he held his hands up to the offences the law of the land say he committed, he may well have avoided jail but he didn't.
Rufus owned six properties at the time of bankruptcy. They were all mortgaged to the hilt but he would have originally put some equity into them at the time he purchased them because lenders do not offer100% mortgages on £2m main residents or buy to let properties. That suggests that he had some money from his playing days albeit that he might have lost all of that. He also had to have the income to service those loans - one assumes that he rented out all the properties bar his main residence but the rental income on those plus estate agency fees and cost of up keep might only have covered the monthly mortgage payments.
Rufus accepted investor deposits of some £16,228,304m, with which he made £5,027,539 in losses through currency trading and paid out £7,362,094. The trading went on from 16 May 2007 to 11 February 2011, during which time Rufus also used £3,422,087 for his own or unknown purposes. So, the £300,000 is a drop in the ocean and he probably used a lot more for other purposes such as, for example, servicing the mortgage on his main residence. I would estimate that the monthly repayment on his home might have been in the region of £10,000 per month. Over that period of 48 months alone that comes to almost £500,000. That's now £800,000 in total without taking into account, as I say, the deposits that he put on the six properties - 25% equates to another £800,000. So we're now up to £1,600,000. Who knows what he originally lost of his own money trading? Perhaps that is why he felt the need to bring in investors. He might just have been a gambler on the money markets who thought that he could one day turn things around and get back what he had lost. That is what some gamblers do.
There might be more to this but we really do not know whether Elliott was on some sort of kick back for introducing people. Let's not forget that Rufus sued Elliott for mentioning Rufus in his resignation letter from Kick It Out - Rufus complained implied he acted disloyally and affected his reputation by leaking to the Press a text from Elliott in which Elliott used the "n" word. But who leaked that exchanged of texts to the Press? It certainly wasn't in Elliott's interest to do so was it? Elliott appealed arguing that someone’s conduct cannot be considered reprehensibly disloyal when it led to the public exposure of wrongdoing by another. He also argued that there is a necessary link between what is defamatory and what is (un)lawful. But Elliott still lost. At no point did Rufus mention Elliott's involvement in the scam. Elliott was a witness for the prosecution though another victim refers to Elliott being at the meeting with Rufus. We might never know the truth but the reality is that it is Rufus who has been found guilty and yet denied he was responsible. God was going to the judge him. Perhaps Rufus still believes that.
he’s managed to hoodwink the banks as well
when I have to do cartwheels to get £500 of my own money out in cash
An honest living.
I should of also said that he probably hasn’t been servicing them for quite some time, so unpaid interest is being added to the mortgages, so that will also see them go higher than current values
Bloody shame that he went off the rails.
The Big Short is one of my favourite films, and lays out the madness of those times
That's extreme but there is so much evidence to gather, people to interview, devices to mirror and examine, phone records to review, bank statements to obtain and analyse. You need copies of everything, nothing can be left to chance. One case I knew about, it took over two years just to scan in all the documents, let alone analyse them.
In addition, Rufus' case was badly held up in the judicial process because of the backlogs caused by COVID. (Cases such as this need a specialist judge, and counsel for both sides and their diaries are always full.)
Rufus retired in 2004 but his last game was on 21/04/03 - just three months after he purchased his main residence. Buying property was, clearly, his first avenue for extra income and investment. He then found something far more exciting in the money markets that he might have had initial success in but wasn't, ultimately, qualified or good at trading in. But he had to find a way of funding his lifestyle and the hefty mortgages he had on those half a dozen properties which he couldn't sell without making a loss and he didn't have the capital to cover those debts anyway. And so the slippery slope which culminated in committing fraud began.