A BUNGLING north west businessman has been shown the red card for selling non-existent World Cup tickets.

Director Michael Meadowcroft, of Burford Lane, in Lymm, Cheshire, fell foul of the law when his company London Sport Ltd sold World Cup 98 tickets to fans - without buying them first.

Now Mr Meadowcroft and co-director Duncan Edwin Albert Knight, also known as Harry Knight, of Matching Green, near Harlow, in Essex, have been banned from acting as directors or taking part in the management of companies for eight years.

The company got into trouble when it accepted payments for tickets it did not have in stock.

The pair then had to purchase the promised tickets at a higher price than they had bargained for without the money to cover their losses - using one customer's money to pay for another's seats.

Some customers not only failed to receive the tickets they had already paid for, but did not get their money back either. Others received only partial refunds.

Eventually the company, which was trading from sites in Lymm and Epping, went into voluntary liquidation in 1999 with estimated debts of £199,430 - although the Insolvency Service says the true cost to creditors is estimated at £644,928.

London Sport ceased trading in 1998, the same year as another company run by the pair, Access to Sport, was struck off the register of companies and dissolved.

It is uncertain whether a third venture London (International) Sport is still trading.

Anyone with information to suggest somebody has breached a disqualification order should contact the Insolvency Service's Defiant Director's Hotline on 0845 6013546.

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