Football fans are fighting for refunds after claiming they paid thousands of pounds for foreign trips that never happened. Football Road Trips was founded by Brummie Kai Rigby in 2015 and organised excursions to watch matches across Europe.
The company is still listed as active on the Companies House website with a registered office in Aldridge, Walsall, with Mr Rigby showing as an active director, but has accounts overdue. And the name of its Facebook account has been changed to The European Football Experience, which posted on its page last September that it had “taken over from the previous market leaders in football travel”.
A number of fans, some of whom had trips booked to the European Championships in Germany, claimed they were left thousands of pounds out-of-pocket after breaks were cancelled at the last minute. They claimed questions about refunds were met with ‘radio silence’ for ‘months.’
One fan, who spent £9,000 for a trip-of-a-lifetime with 15 friends for his stag-do, said: “None of us have had a penny back.”
READ MORE: Great Barr resident’s fury as ‘blatant’ driver dumps rubbish over hedge ‘because tip is closed’
‘He was very convincing’
Ryan Kemp, from Scotland, booked a trip to the Euros back in December 2023 for him and his father and son. Having paid nearly £2,000 for the trip, he claimed it was cancelled at the last minute, with no further communication regarding refunds.
Ryan told BirminghamLive: “Everything seemed fine when booking. I got a call from Kai who talked me through the process – he was very convincing. We sent all the money over and got a receipt all as planned.
“My last payment didn’t go through, so I was told to pay through PayPal instead. We were asked to pay a further instalment because of increased transportation costs. After we paid that final instalment, we heard nothing for weeks.
“On the Monday before the Euros, we were told our trip was cancelled with no timescale for refunding us. I’ve sent them a number of emails asking for the match tickets, and telling them we’d arrange our own travel, but they haven’t responded.”
Ryan was able to obtain a refund from his bank. Lloyds Banking Group told BirminghamLive it conducted an investigation into payments made by Mr Kemp to European Football Experiences. A Lloyds spokesperson said: “Helping keep our customers’ money safe is our priority and we have a great deal of sympathy for Mr Kemp. Mr Kemp called us on June 10 and logged a claim with the bank and we have provided him with a full refund.”
‘It’s caused us a lot of stress’
Football fan Billy Wakefield claimed he was left £9,000 out-of-pocket after he booked a stag-do trip in January 2023 for him and 15 friends. The trip was meant to take them across Belgium, Germany and Amsterdam, but Billy claimed it was cancelled with no information regarding refunds.
He said: “I’d known of the company for years and always fancied booking a trip before I got married. I went ahead and booked it, made all the payments and got a call from Kai saying everything was fine.
“He sweet-talked me into thinking everything was OK. We selected our trip but from January this year, we still hadn’t heard anything from them – it was radio silence.
“The day of the trip came and it was never cancelled – they didn’t even email us to apologise or offer a refund. None of us have had a penny back from the company. It’s caused us a lot of stress.”
‘He’s got a lot to answer for’
Mat Langdon, from Durham, booked a trip for him and two friends in January, having previously used Football Road Trips with ‘no problems’. He said: “I used the company a few years ago, before Covid, and everything was great – we got what we paid for and we had a great weekend in Germany. With the Euros coming up I wanted to do another trip with two friends.
“When I made a payment, I was told by the company that it didn’t go through, even though the money had left my bank. Eventually it went through and we got receipts but, for whatever reason, we were told to make the last payment through PayPal.
“A week later I was told to pay another £128 each due to increased travel costs. We didn’t want to miss out so we paid it – and that was it for weeks. I’ve sent them countless emails and messages regarding our itinerary but we’ve had nothing.”
‘I couldn’t sleep at night’
Matthew Smith, from Leeds, booked a trip with European Football Experience in January 2023 – paying a total of £1,400 for a trip to see Dortmund and Ajax with a friend. He claimed he was left in the cold for months trying to sort a refund when his trip was cancelled due to ‘increased transportation costs.’
Matthew’s wife has created a Facebook group with other football fans awaiting refunds from European Football Experiences – a group Matthew said was now 50-members strong. He told BirminghamLive: “A week before the trip was due to go ahead, I got an email from someone saying that, because the cost of fuel had increased, they wouldn’t be able to run the trip.
“That’s all I heard from them for weeks. When the issue first came to light, I couldn’t sleep at night because I was the one who organised the trip and sent the payments on behalf of my mates.”
BirminghamLive has made numerous attempts to contact Mr Rigby and European Football Experience Ltd. Following his claim to the bank, Lloyds decided to issue Mr Kemp a full refund.