Rhon­dor Dowlat

Eng­lish foot­ball coach Ter­ry Fen­wick has been al­leged­ly linked to a $450,000 at­tempt­ed fraud which is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by TT Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

The al­leged fraud re­volves around an ap­pli­ca­tion to the Min­istry of Sport to re­ceive fund­ing to en­ter his club, Ma Pau FC, in­to the TT Pro League for the 2015/2016 sea­son.

It is al­leged there was an at­tempt to mis­in­form the min­istry's per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Gillian Mac­in­tyre, by stat­ing that Ma Pau had in­vest­ed $8.5 mil­lion in re­fur­bish­ing the Mor­vant recre­ation ground.

The file al­so in­clud­ed al­leged ref­er­ences to "be­fore and af­ter" pho­tographs pur­port­ing to be of the grounds but which were pho­tos of a fa­cil­i­ty out­side of T&T.

The al­leged fraud on­ly came to light af­ter the $450,000 cheque had been is­sued payable to Ma Pau.

A source in­side the Min­istry of Sport, who wished to re­main anony­mous said: " Fen­wick and his part­ner were in and out of the min­istry for a few weeks look­ing for mon­ey for his foot­ball club and his coach­ing school, Foot­ball Fac­to­ry. Every­thing seemed nor­mal un­til it was dis­cov­ered that Ma Pau's ap­pli­ca­tion to join the Pro League had been re­ject­ed."

As per the terms of the fund­ing, Mac­in­tyre im­me­di­ate­ly moved to can­cel the cheque.

How­ev­er, up­on re­view of the file, var­i­ous in­ac­cu­ra­cies were dis­cov­ered, re­sult­ing in a de­ci­sion to call in the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate fur­ther.

"The last thing we want in the min­istry is an­oth­er scan­dal," said the source. "Un­known to many of us, the min­is­ter had put in place a sys­tem to check files that were ap­proved for fund­ing to en­sure prop­er pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed."

The source said one such pro­ce­dure would usu­al­ly be a site vis­it.

"We are sup­posed to go and check on the peo­ple ap­ply­ing to en­sure every­thing is ex­act­ly as claimed. Usu­al­ly an ap­pli­ca­tion takes sev­er­al weeks to be ap­proved. How­ev­er, in the case of Ma Pau, it was processed in a week.

"I have nev­er seen a file like that ap­proved so fast. It ap­pears there wasn't time to con­duct a site vis­it which would have ex­posed the dis­crep­an­cies."

When con­tact­ed on the mat­ter Dex­ter Skeene, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the T&T Pro League con­firmed that an ap­pli­ca­tion was made by Fen­wick and that the Board is cur­rent­ly look­ing in­to the ap­pli­ca­tion.

"The ap­pli­ca­tion wasn't ap­proved yet but we try to help all new clubs com­ing in," Skeene said.

When asked if he knew about the in­ves­ti­ga­tions of al­leged fraud in which Fen­wick is al­leged­ly in­volved, Skeene replied: "No. I am not aware of all this."

The source added that the speed of the ap­pli­ca­tion even beat Sports Min­is­ter Brent San­cho's ad­di­tion­al over­sights.

"The min­is­ter was not even aware of the ap­pli­ca­tion un­til af­ter the PS (per­ma­nent sec­re­tary) can­celled the cheque. Ap­par­ent­ly he was fu­ri­ous that no­body iden­ti­fied the dis­crep­an­cies."

While the min­istry's staff were aware there was a prob­lem, they were sur­prised to be called to be in­ter­viewed by the po­lice.

"They had lots of peo­ple ques­tioned, in­clud­ing the Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion De­part­ment and peo­ple from ac­counts. The in­ter­views last­ed sev­er­al hours," the source added.

San­cho and Fen­wick were World Cup de­fend­ers for their re­spec­tive coun­tries, and Fen­wick coached San­cho at San Juan Jabloteh.

The roles were lat­er re­versed when San­cho was man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Cen­tral FC and em­ployed Fen­wick as head coach. How­ev­er, it has not been ex­plained why Fen­wick did not ap­proach San­cho for fund­ing from his min­istry.

When con­tact­ed by the TT Guardian, San­cho con­firmed there was an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a pos­si­ble fraud con­nect­ed to a fund­ing re­quest from the for­mer coach (Fen­wick) of Cen­tral FC the reign­ing T&T Pro League cham­pi­ons.

"Yes, there is an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the hands of the po­lice but I can­not dis­cuss de­tails at this time," he added.

When asked if Fen­wick was in­volved, the min­is­ter replied: "Yes, it was an ap­pli­ca­tion by Ter­ry. How­ev­er, un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed there should be no as­sump­tion of guilt against any­body in­volved in the mat­ter.

"We have seen too many in­stances of in­ter­net blog­gers mak­ing false ac­cu­sa­tions with­out any proof of wrong­do­ing and I am not about to join their gut­ter pol­i­tics brigade"

When con­tact­ed, San­cho's ad­vis­er, Kevin Har­ri­son, al­so con­firmed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion but re­fused to com­ment on its progress.

"It's the most se­ri­ous in­stance that's hap­pened since the min­is­ter was ap­point­ed in Feb­ru­ary. The most wor­ry­ing fac­tor is that he had no idea that this ap­pli­ca­tion ex­ist­ed un­til Ma Pau's ap­pli­ca­tion to the Pro League had been re­ject­ed. It ap­pears that the ap­pli­ca­tion was processed in a man­ner to avoid it com­ing to the min­is­ter's at­ten­tion," the source said.

The source added that there may now be fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Fen­wick's re­ceipt of fund­ing for his Foot­ball Fac­to­ry coach­ing school.

"The min­is­ter is now hav­ing all ap­proved ap­pli­ca­tions for fund­ing re­viewed to en­sure his poli­cies were fol­lowed. I am sure the Foot­ball Fac­to­ry will be one of the first to be re­viewed."

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for com­ment, Fen­wick ad­mit­ted he did ap­ply to the TT Pro League but dis­closed his ap­pli­ca­tion was be­ing ham­pered, al­leged­ly by of­fi­cials with­in the min­istry.

"It is a long sto­ry. One that I am will­ing to tell be­cause I have all the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion in or­der," Fen­wick said.

When asked if he was mis­led or tricked in one way or the oth­er, Fen­wick replied: "No."

Fen­wick, who is mar­ried to lawyer Rey­na Kow­lessar, moved to Bel­gium last sum­mer to take con­trol of a club but re­turned when a num­ber of al­leged fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties forced the club to part com­pa­ny with sev­er­al of Fen­wick's busi­ness part­ners.