8 Sep, 2025 @ 16:41
1 min read

Basketball coach faces jail over Easter tournament scam in Mallorca

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A BASKETBALL coach in Palma is facing three years behind bars after allegedly pocketing nearly €8,000 from a bogus Easter tournament that never took place.

Prosecutors claim the 44-year-old Spaniard tricked his own club in 2024, offering to organise a Semana Santa competition – then cashing in two invoices worth €3,795 each. But instead of setting up matches, he allegedly vanished with the money.

The long-serving coach, who worked at one of the city’s historic clubs, is accused of never contacting rival teams or booking venues. When officials grew suspicious, he failed to explain himself and the tournament was scrapped.

Club bosses confronted him in April last year, giving him a chance to return the cash. But he refused – and even ignored a formal legal notice sent the following month.

Now, after 18 months, the case will finally reach court in Palma’s criminal chambers, where the trainer faces charges of fraud and a possible prison term.

Click here to read more Mallorca News from The Olive Press.

Dilip Kuner

Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988.
He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press.
At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park.
In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here.
He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency.
He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later.
Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

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