FORMER Wales and Newport County player Mark Aizlewood has appeared in court with five other men in connection with fraud allegations involving football-based apprentice schemes. 

Six men appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday, charged in connection with a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the activity of Luis Michael Training Ltd, a company purporting to provide young people with football-based apprenticeship schemes.

Mark Aizlewood, aged 56, from Aberdare, is originally from Newport and signed as a schoolboy for Newport County aged 14. He is now a manager for Carmarthen Town.

Aizlewood along with former Newport County player Paul Anthony Sugrue, 55, from Cardiff, Christopher Paul Martin, 51, from Newbury, England, Keith Anthony Williams, 43, from Anglesey, Steven Paul Gooding, 52, from Bridgwater, England and Jack William Harper, 29, from Southport, England are charged with offences ranging from conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, to fraud and using a false instrument.

It is alleged Luis Michael Training Ltd claimed payments from several Further Education Colleges for training and education services they did not, in fact, provide.

Mark Aizlewood, Paul Anthony Sugrue, Christopher Paul Martin and Keith Anthony Williams were directors and shareholders of Luis Michael Training Ltd. Steven Paul Gooding and Jack William Harper are said to have been employed as recruiters of learners for this company.

It is alleged that a separate but linked attempt to defraud a Further Education college was committed by Jack William Harper, through a company called FootballQualifications.com.

The alleged conduct took place between 2009 and 2011.

The six defendants will make their next appearance at Southwark Crown Court on June 1 2016.