Gainsborough Trinity Denounces Fake Manager Making Bogus Transfer Offers

Gainsborough Trinity have denounced an individual who has been posing as their manager and approaching players with false transfer and wage offers across non-league football.

The Northern Premier League Premier Division side, in the seventh tier of the English game, say the impersonator has contacted “a number of players” at various levels of the non-league pyramid while claiming to represent the club.

Chief executive Matt Boles moved quickly to distance Gainsborough and boss Russ Wilcox from the messages.

He stressed he wanted to make it “categorically clear” that no such approaches had come from Wilcox or anyone acting on the club’s behalf.

“We strongly condemn the actions of the individual responsible,” Boles said on the club’s website. “Impersonating a football manager and making false representations to players is completely unacceptable and has the potential to cause unnecessary disruption and reputational damage to players, managers and clubs.”

The alarm was raised when managers and officials at other clubs went straight to the source. They contacted Wilcox directly, suspecting something was wrong with the tone and content of the approaches.

According to Boles, that reaction said plenty about Wilcox’s standing in the game.

“Many have done so precisely because they know Russ, know the professional standards by which he conducts himself, and immediately recognised that this is not the manner in which he would approach or attempt to recruit a player,” he explained.

The patience at the Northolme has clearly snapped. Boles delivered a blunt message to the person behind the hoax.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “Stop impersonating our manager, stop wasting the time of players and clubs across the non-league game and, quite frankly, get a life.”

Gainsborough have reported the matter to both the Northern Premier League and the Football Association, ensuring the game’s authorities are aware of the impersonation and its potential impact.

The incident comes during a period of relative on-field progress for Trinity. Under Wilcox, appointed in 2023 after previous managerial spells at Scunthorpe United and York City, the club reached the FA Cup second round in 2024-25, having made the first round the previous season.

Wilcox’s own reputation has been built over a long career in the professional game, with playing spells at Northampton Town, Hull City, Doncaster Rovers, Preston North End and Scunthorpe. That background has helped shape the standards Gainsborough now feel compelled to defend so fiercely off the pitch.