Rugby players’ millions vanish in €100m French club deal - IOL

Rugby players say they were persuaded to invest hundreds of thousands of euros in a proposed takeover of French club Béziers. Pictured here is Anthony Johnson, left, and Johan Roux.

Springbok wing Makazole Mapimpi's agent and a former World Cup star are in hot water after persuading rugby players to hand over hundreds of thousands of euros to buy a French club.

But instead of buying Béziers, a fallen giant of French rugby playing in the second division, the money was transferred into an Italian man's personal bank account in Poland, where a criminal case has now been opened.

Rugby agent Anthony Johnson and Johan Roux, the ex-scrum-half who played 12 Tests for SA between 1994 and 1996, and was part of the 1995 Rugby World Cup-winning squad, told the players their money was needed upfront to "unlock" a €100m, about R1.9bn, loan that would be used to buy the club outright.

Both men, however, said that while they had pitched the deal to the players, they too had ended up as victims.

Johnson said his life had become a nightmare and that he was working around the clock to "rectify" the situation, while Roux said the ordeal had cost him his marriage.

The men said they had put their own money into the deal and remained hopeful of getting it back, though Roux declined to provide proof of his payment or to disclose the amount he claimed to have invested.

"It is a f---ing s---show," a former Sharks hooker said after paying €120,000, about R2.2m, on that promise made in October 2021.

The player asked not to be named because he did not want the case to become a spectacle tethered to him.

He said the deal had been put to him on a Zoom meeting arranged by Johnson, his agent of 15 years, which Roux then joined.

"Anthony set up the Zoom meeting and Johan joined after. Anthony asked me to pay the money, and Johan was behind it. And because after five years I have received no money, my lawyers assisted me in opening a criminal complaint with police in Poland," the player, who was based in France at the time, said.

The agreement he signed gave the deal a 30-day deadline.

At the end of it, he was to get his €120,000 back, along with €80,000, about R1.5m, in interest, a return of 66% in just one month.

But that deadline came and went, and he received neither his investment nor the promised interest.

Another rugby player, who also declined to be named, said he was approached with a similar investment opportunity and that the modus operandi was apparently similar.

"I don't really want to go on the record as I don't want to lose the chance of getting my money back."

Both players said they believed it had been a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, with money raised from each new player used to keep the previous ones quiet.

Johnson is a rugby agent accredited by the Rugby Football Union in England, and a director of the SA Rugby Agents Association. 

He has been based in France for the past few years.

Former Springbok scrumhalf Roux now runs a company called Global Sport Capital, which he said invests in sport and sport-related business.

He told IOL that the players' money was never destined for a rugby club at all, while confirming in the same breath that the hooker had been told it was.

"To access loans, you need collateral, right?

"So this money went to activate the collateral so we can get the loan."

On Roux's account, the players' money was put up as security to persuade a bank to release a much larger loan, which would then be used to buy Béziers.

The plan hinged on a €100m loan being released to Global Sport Capital, which would then use it to buy the club.

However, the loan was never released and the takeover never happened.

IOL asked Roux what the collateral was, and who was holding it. He refused to disclose either.

"I don't think I need to tell you that ... you [the reporter] are not involved."

IOL has also listened to a recording of the Zoom meeting at which the deal was pitched.

During it, Roux told the player he was part of the bank the money would be going to, an entity calling itself Eurokredit Merchant Bank.

"I'm [part of] Eurokredit Merchant Bank, which is a merchant bank we got in Italy and in Poland," he told him.

"Now we are short of 120k, and we need you to transfer tomorrow.

"For the 120k, we are willing to pay back 200k. We probably will pay you back in 15.

"You are not dealing with some fringer. It is a registered merchant bank."

Later in the meeting, the hooker raised concerns about the tax he would have to pay in France on the €80,000 profit.

Roux suggested the money could instead be routed through Cyprus, Poland or Latvia.

He also assured him that the chief executive of a Cypriot bank had personally backed the arrangement.

"They don't care what government comes knocking on their doors, they will never open their books to them."

Asked about that offer, Roux told IOL he did not handle other people's money.

The hooker signed the agreement on October 28 2021 and was given 24 hours to pay.

He paid the next morning, in 12 transfers of €10,000 each.

Every transfer was made out to "EMB Antonino Pane" and labelled with the French word pret, meaning "loan".

Pane is an Italian national who describes himself as the chief executive of Eurokredit Merchant Bank and gives an address in Sorrento, southern Italy.

The account into which the money was paid was held in his own name at Alior Bank in Warsaw, Poland.

An IOL investigation, based on the signed agreement, bank records, five years of correspondence, company records from three countries and three recordings, found that the deal promised the player insurance cover of at least €1m, about R18.7m, from a company named in the agreement as "Heuler Hermes".

But no company by that name exists.

The trade credit insurer matching the description is Euler Hermes, now trading as Allianz Trade, which IOL has asked to confirm whether any policy was ever issued in connection with the deal.

The invoice directing him where to send his money was dated a week before he signed the agreement.

And a year after the money was paid, Roux signed another document in a strikingly similar form, this time guaranteeing repayment of upfront fees paid by a Hong Kong company for loans that never materialised.

All eight SA companies Roux is registered as a director of are deregistered or in liquidation.

Global Sport Capital is not registered in SA at all.

Roux said the company that would become Global Sport Capital is an American public company of which he is chairman.

Roux named the three men behind the deal himself, on the recording.

"We're busy with the transaction: me, Anthony, Rudy Joubert (sic)" he said.

Joubert is a former Bulls coach who was part of the Springbok management team at two World Cups.

Roux told IOL he had been mandated in writing by Pane to raise the money, but would not produce the mandate.

He said he owned no part of the bank, had put in far more than the hooker, but would not disclose how much, and would not confirm whether his own money went to the same account.

"I was mandated by them," Roux said.

"Eurokredit is basically the bank that would fund me too. I mean, I put money into it also. But currently I'm not a shareholder or an officer of Eurokredit.

"Why doesn't he sue Eurokredit if he wants to get his money back? This is a business transaction."

Roux has not sued the bank himself.

He said he was certain his own money was safe, and that he is still raising money now.

He initially said he had never seen the agreement the player signed, before later acknowledging that he had.

Johnson, meanwhile, told IOL he had lost about €100,000, about R1.9m, of his own money in the deal and was now in the same position as the players he had brought into it.

"I've got nothing to do with EMB [Eurokredit bank]. I'm not employed by EMB. I don't work for EMB.

"In fact, I personally am invested in this thing and I'm in the same position as [the Sharks hooker] and the other guys.

"Firstly, I was introduced to Mr Roux by Rudy Joubert.

"So Rudy approached me about finding a club and all the rest. I only met Mr Roux later.

"I dealt with Rudy. We met clubs. We had meetings with mayors of cities and presidents of clubs. He was sorting the finance stuff with Johan.

"I am aware that the idea of all of it was to do the rugby club, 100%.

"But obviously that never went into a rugby club because it was never purchased."

Johnson gave IOL proof, on condition it was not published, of three payments totalling €91,500, about R1.7m, into Pane's Warsaw account, sent by an Irish company of his.

He also confirmed that another player's money had passed through a company account of his on the way to Pane.

It is not clear whether the money Johnson said he had invested was his own, or money belonging to other players that had passed through the same account. Nothing on the payment records he supplied distinguishes between the two.

On a second recording heard by IOL, Johnson discussed buying the club and raising more money for it.

Johnson is heard saying he could not openly hold an interest in a club because of his work and could not be seen to be doing so.

Agents are generally barred from having a financial interest in a club to which they place players, because it could place them on both sides of the same transaction.

Johnson told IOL that nothing came of the arrangement because no club was ever bought.

He said there was no conflict of interest because he is not licenced as an agent in France and that he had not disclosed the arrangement to any accrediting body.

Joubert, 64, told IOL he flew to France at his own expense, arranged meetings at Béziers and accompanied Johnson to meet the town's mayor.

He was expected to become the club's president.

Joubert said he spent about R500,000 on travel and legal costs on Roux's behalf. He has received none of it back and said he has never met Pane.

"I wasn't part of the financial transactions at all. I had no role in that. I only negotiated the rugby matters," Joubert said.

"I know the players acted because they knew me and my reputation as somebody that has got integrity.

"I was a professional rugby coach all my life. I coached the Springboks.

"I was involved in three World Cups. I'm 64 years old now and I am the head of sport at a high school.

"I had to start all over again. I had to relocate to a small town. I sold my car."

Between February and June 2022, four letters were sent to the player, each blaming something new for the delay in his payment.

They were written and signed by Pane, but it was Roux who forwarded them on.

In February he wrote that an €800,000 investment, about R15m, was about to close, and that a two billion bond had been secured for a €450m offer, about R8.4bn, for a sportswear group.

That letter also named Roux's company.

"In Global Sport Capital we have agreed to buy Rugby Store Group," Pane wrote.

Roux told IOL that purchase never materialised.

In March, Pane blamed American banks made nervous by Russia, and promised payment on a date two years in the past.

Eleven days later he apologised and pointed at a firm in New York.

"I will come back to you with exact dates of payment and that will not change again," he wrote.

It changed again. In June he blamed the war in Ukraine, said the funding would come from China, and promised to settle everything by early July with a bonus on top.

Nothing was settled and no bonus was paid.

Questions have been sent to Pane and to police in Poland.

Roux, Johnson and Joubert all said they had not been contacted by any law enforcement agency and had not known a case had been opened.