Chesterfield FC, a third tier team in English soccer who notoriously signed convicted rapist Ched Evans, put together a fan raffle for a spot on a preseason tour to Hungary and almost nobody bit at the offer. We say almost nobody, because four loyal fans paid the £10 entry fee. But on the whole it was a failure. So, Chesterfield decided to just pretend like it never happened. They never announced a winner and then when fans began to ask questions, like “who won the trip?” the club announced that the raffle had been won by “Surrey-based Spireite James Higgins.” But this fan was a mystery. There was no record of his thrilling victory, or photo ops, or gleeful tweets.

Finally, after all of this was spiraling out of control, the club’s director and company secretary Ashley Carson released a statement acknowledging the whole fiasco and appearing to confirm the suspicion that the club just invented a supporter to avoid embarrassment and figured no one was going to miss some £50. Carson says they were provided false information:

I have discovered that a winning entry was not legitimate and the information supplied to the club’s communications department had clearly been falsified with regards to the winner of a place at the pre-season training camp.

Fortunately, no supporters have been affected financially or inconvenienced.

However, the club has a zero tolerance approach to such misleading activities and we remain committed to supporting our supporters on every level, which includes transparency and clear communications.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the supporter who contacted me personally about his concerns, which ultimately led to the enquiry.

Chesterfield Football Club apologises unreservedly to the four supporters who entered the competition and we can assure all supporters that following the internal review, disciplinary action will be taken.

It’s not clear how they know the information was falsified, but not the identity of the falsifier, but this is a pretty standard passive voice non-apology apology. But how many teams can say they invented a fan out of thin air? That’s good to be good for something.