He signed several professional contracts but did not complete a game. The curious story of fake footballer Bernio Verhagen.
A Dutch amateur footballer has pleaded guilty to fraud and counterfeiting after stone cold cheating on clubs in South Africa, Chile, Denmark and Transnistria. These are just the facts of an incredible story.
So let’s take a look at what exactly Bernio Verhagen did and how he managed to sign as many as four professional contracts without playing a single game for the clubs.
Verhagen’s story began with a move to FC Dinamo-Auto in Transnistria, a small club in Moldova’s first professional league. He didn’t play a game for the club before signing yet another new contract – this time with South African club Cape Town FC, where he stayed for just a month before leaving again without a game…
Next up was a contract with Chilean club Audax Italiano, which he left after a few months and zero appearances. You’re starting to see a pattern.
Verhagen: Negotiations with other clubs as a white lie
Verhagen said in conversation with boldthat he had previously conducted negotiations with the Danish clubs from Naestved and Randers – in retrospect, of course, these turned out to be untrue.
Shortly thereafter, Verhagen was accused of kidnapping by his girlfriend Muci and the club’s investigation into the player led to the realization that they had been cheated.
As Vice reported, Verhagen has trained largely alone at each club, with the teams never really seeing how good the Dutchman is on the pitch and on the ball. By the way: In the meantime, the Dutch association had not received any information that Verhagen had ever moved abroad.
Danish club Viborg then released a statement on Verhagen’s signing, stating that they had offered the Dutchman a contract after they had a deal with the Stellar Group came into contact – an agency that represents the likes of Gareth Bale, Mason Mount and Jack Grealish. So is Verhagen really big after all?
No, of course not: the club then realized pretty quickly that the emails were fake, as they contained an address ending in “.co” instead of “.co.uk”.