Online Reporter
TWO courier drivers accused of plundering £13,500-worth of England kit were facing jail terms of up to seven years over the World Cup’s Great Trainer Robbery yesterday.
Afghan-born Mustafa Salik and Erfan Kamal were quizzed by cops after boots, footballs and training gear vanished.
Three signed England shirts — each worth £3,729 — and two of the team’s stuffed lion mascots were among property pilfered in the raid on Friday.
The pair were paid to ferry a lorry trailer load of gear on a 21-hour road trip from England’s Florida warm-up base to their new camp in Kansas.
In a statement, Salik, 40, and 35-year-old Kamal admitted stopping in Columbia, Missouri, 150 miles from the destination at Kansas City’s Swope Soccer Village, to help themselves to gear.
But they claimed to have been invited to take property by an unidentified FA employee. They each face one count of receiving stolen property — a class D felony which carries between one and seven years in prison.
The duo have been remanded in custody.
Jackson County Court papers revealed the pair were caught when an FA worker at the Swope site noticed a knot securing the load had been undone.
FA officials said yesterday that all property was now accounted for and the raid would not affect England’s World Cup preparations. Reserve goalie Dean Henderson confirmed his boots went missing, but added: “I got them back.
“We got everything back.”—Sun.
Bongani Ndlovu