The Philadelphia Eagles yesterday ended a 58-year jinx to defeat the New England Patriots. And all the coverage reminds us that sports stars can earn eye-popping sums in a short period. But these stars must husband that wealth because age and the risk of injury can force players to depart the field often after only a few years. And the challenge of managing wealth is made even harder if financial advisors prey on athletes.

The market appears littered with examples of shyster advisors; cases go back several years. In 2002, the NFL Players' Association said in that year that between 1999 and 2002, at least 78 players had been defrauded of more than $42 million from a wide variety of investment schemes. Examples abound: Theodore Kritza ex-business manager of Richard Jefferson, an NBA star, was charged (WHEN) of defrauding Jefferson of $7 million, and, in 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Atlanta-based investment advisor Charles Augustus Banks with defrauding an unnamed former professional basketball player of $20 million. There’s more: In 2014, FINRA barred Fuad Ahmed, chief executive and president of brokerage firm Success Trade Securities, and his firm from membership, for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme, and ordered it to pay around $13.7 million in restitution to a group of investors composed mostly of current and former professional athletes. 

In 2016, Louis Martin Blazer III, a Pittsburgh-based financial advisor, was accused, by the SEC, of taking money without permission from the accounts of several professional athletes to invest in movie projects. And in August 2017, former basketball star Jamaal Tinsley filed a lawsuit accusing his former agent and attorney, financial managers and housekeeper of taking more money than they were due.

While exhaustive data appears hard to pin down, the number of cases has encouraged efforts to fight back. , a company that monitors and reviews professional athletes' finances for fraud, in a move highlighting a need to protect such individuals' business affairs.

“The interesting thing about fraud in sports is that it has been happening for decades and decades, but what I have found fascinating is that there is not really a tonne of information or statistics on fraud in sports,” David Byrne, founder of BrightLights, told this news service in an interview.

“The one stat that you can hear over and over again is from the Sports Illustrated report by Pablo Torre (March 23, 2009), which cites that 78 per cent of former NBA stars are broke in five years of retirement, and 60 per cent of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or under financial stress after two years. Everyone cites those two statistics very often, but that report is from 2009,” he said. 

Byrne has plenty of hands-on experience in fighting financial crime; he was previously manager of the anti-money laundering investigative unit at . He discussed the different types of fraud against sports stars, and said there is a range of ways that financial advisors exploit their clients.

“It really is a mixture of all kinds of fraud (schemes, stealing from clients, inflated fees and buying into investments that sports stars don’t know much about),” said Byrne. “You are going to have different kinds of fraud constantly. There was one sees is that, there are number of kids coming up from college into the pros, as well as the veterans, you are going to have some athletes that don’t have the in-depth knowledge of finance or financial markets. They need an advocate behind them making sure everything is above board and that everyone on their financial team are all working together,” he said. (Joey Branion is founder and chief executive of Vanguard Sports Group.)

“My goal is to combat fraud against all sports stars. BrightLights acts as an independent advocate for the athlete. We don’t charge a per cent, which is not typical in the finance industry or in the sports world, and I think that helps separate us. There are loads of articles and problems, and documentaries about fraud against athletes, but there hasn’t been anything to address this other than financial education. The hope is having a good financial advisor, but the problem is that there is a very small percentage that will take advantage of this opportunity. There needs to be accountability in this world and what BrightLights does is provide a bit of that,” he added.

Of course, the firms aren’t entering this space out of altruism and hope to earn a fee protecting sports stars from fraud. But as far as the players and fans are concerned, everyone wins if athletes can focus on what they do best rather than fretting that a shady advisor is taking them for a ride.