Jay Austin, a 44-year-old from Greater Manchester, is accused of defrauding parents of young female footballers of more than £27,000. The victims were promised elite opportunities for their daughters, including a trip to Paris, which never occurred.

The £27,000 theft from RS Lionesses parents

According to the report, Jay Austin targeted hundreds of girls under the age of 12 by promising them the chance to play in Premier League stadiums and attract the attention of professional talent scouts. Parents of players on the RS Lionesses team were charged for registration fees and monthly subscriptions to maintain their daughters' spots on the squad.

The fraud extended beyond registration, as parents reportedly paid for football kits that were never delivered. In some cases, the report says Austin charged families for tournaments that were actually free to enter because they were sponsored by the hosting clubs. These cumulative costs led to the total loss of over £27,000 across the affected families.

The £8,500 Paris International Cup failure and the £2,000 GoFundMe appeal

A central part of the deception involved the Paris International Cup, an event scheduled for July at the Paris St Germain training ground. Parents claim they were pressured into paying £8,500 upfront to secure a place for the RS Lionesses, only to discover that Jay Austin had never actually registered the team for the tournament.

Because the funds were stolen, the young athletes' chance to compete in France is currently in jeopardy. To remedy this, the affected families have launched a GoFundMe campaign with a goal of £2,000 to cover the costs of sending the girls to Paris despite the financial blow dealt by Austin.

From Royal Ascot fake notes to the 2008 grandparent bank fraud

The current allegations against Jay Austin are part of a decades-long history of financial crime. as the report details, Austin was convicted of fraud and false representation in 2008 after using his grandparents' identities to open bank accounts, which he used to pay gambling debts and write £15,000 in bounced cheques.

His criminal record continued in 2012, when he served a two-year prison sentence for passing counterfeit banknotes at Royal Ascot.. More recently, Austin was accused in 2017 of scamming Lee Chapman, a Jamie Vardy lookalike, out of appearance fees, and in 2021, he was accused by Katie Price of attempting to profit from her disabled son, Harvey.

The Lancashire FA suspension and the missing refund trail

The Lancashire FA has since suspended the RS Lionesses team and issued an interim suspension order against Jay Austin, who has been charged with bringing the game into disrepute. Despite this, many families remain without their money; while some have reported the losses as authorised push payment (APP) scams to their banks, the report says most have not received any refunds.

There remain significant questions regarding how a man with such a public history of fraud was permitted to lead a youth sports organization. Furthermore, while Jay Austin claims the allegations are false, the report highlights a WhatsApp voice note in which he admitted to being in "massive debt" and having maxed out several credit cards. It remains unclear whether the Lancashire FA had any vetting process in place before Austin founded the RS Lionesses.