Aussie NCAA football players accused of faking transcripts

An investigation spanning more than half a year reportedly found immigration fraud involving Australian kickers who have attended U.S. schools and played for NCAA programs.

The seven-month project reported that there are at least some kickers and punters playing U.S. college football that should not have received a scholarship nor were they eligible for a student visa.

Fox San Antonio spoke to investigators, college coaches, and competing kicker schools in order to determine whether or not Australian punters and kickers were submitting fraudulent stories and/or transcripts to obtain scholarships with American schools.

“The injustice is there are players that are doing it the right way, Australian and international players, American players that are doing it the right way, that have legit transcripts,” a college coach told the outlet under the condition of anonymity.

The same coach revealed that one player from Australia claimed to have four years of eligibility and was being looked at to be recruited into the NCAA. Despite the Australian academy claiming the player had never been to college, the coach discovered through his own research that the player only had three years of eligibility.

Using a cyber investigator — Ken Gamble, chairman of IFW International — the San Antonio outlet discovered another athlete whose transcript was misrepresented. While an Australian player’s authentic transcript showed failing grades, the report alleged a different transcript was submitted to the NCAA that showed significantly higher grades that had been altered in order to meet athletic standards.

The report cited another anonymous source, this time an Australian trainer and recruiter, who said he received a doctored transcript from a kicking academy that changed a player’s grades from a “C” to a “B.”

“His GPA wasn’t high enough out of high school, so they redid it, and he sent it to me. I said, ‘Why is it that this one, you got a B in it. And this one, you got a C?'” the recruiting expert reportedly asked.

Another scenario described an Australian student who accidentally revealed he had attended school previously and had lied about his eligibility.

“There was a kid that actually outed himself,” the anonymous trainer recalled. “They sat down. He sat down with his adviser and said, ‘Oh, you need to take these classes and these classes.’ And then he was like, ‘No, no, I already took that in university.’ And they said, ‘What?’ They did some research. And they said, ‘You’ve already gone to uni? You’ve got, you know, two weeks to pack your bags and get out of here.'”

Gamble stated the students who he investigated have already attended university full-time, and he and his team “don’t believe” that this fact was disclosed.

The Australian kicking academy did not reply to the local outlet’s request for comment.

While Gamble said the responsibility to investigate the transcripts of international students falls on the American universities, a source with the NCAA reportedly told the outlet the investigations are a rather challenging endeavor.

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