The Chairman of a Rugby club in the Basque Lands stands accused of being very naughty with Christmas Lottery payouts.

Chairman Zuluaga was arrested by the Ertzaintza (the Basque regional police) nine days after it was revealed that around a club members were still waiting for the club’s Board of Directors to pay out their winnings from the Third Prize of the last year’s Christmas Lottery, El Gordo.

Not only has the winnings not been handed over, but the police even suspect that the club had been overselling tickets for years; an issue that had gone unnoticed until now.

Last Christmas, the third prize of the lottery left more than 14-million euros in Igorre. The rugby club played 285 tenths of a ticket (décimos), which it divided into 5-euro shares (costing four euros). You’ve all seen this kind of lottery participation in supermarkets and bars: an entity buys a complete page (10 décimos) and sells participations, in this case, at five euros each.

When the club’s number was announced as the winner of Third Prize, there are photos in the local presses of Chairman Zuluaga rejoicing alongside the owners of the lottery administration where he purchased the tickets. Each ticket corresponded to 9,600 euros. The club collected the money, deposited it into a bank account, and began the distribution.

However, instead of paying out to the participation holders… they began stalling. Deadlines were announced and whooshed by with a shekel being handed over. The contact number rang off the hook (for us old foggies) because nobody answered and the Chairman was conspicuous by his absence.

Well, the whole thing finally exploded, naturally. The first lawsuit against the Board was register on the 3rd of last month. By the 6th it was announced that the club had run out of funds although not everybody had been paid.

That same day, the Chairman announced that, “more participations had been sold by mistake” than the 1,400 covered by the prize.” This is not just a simple glitch because it amounted to 2.1-million euros!

Surprisingly… the smelly stuff hit the fan and those affected formed a platform. The got their heads together and found that 286 participation had not been paid out, totalling 2.7m in their estimation. What happened in their rugby club was just not cricket!

If found guilty, the chairman could be looking at a prison sentence of 12 years for fraud.

(News: Igorre, Basque Lands)

Keywords: Rugby Club Lottery Scandal, Christmas Lottery, Participation, Over Selling, Not Paid Out

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