A pair of drivers face felony charges after they couldn’t wait to get their hands on some 2026 World Cup gear.
The two drivers, Mustafa Salik and Erfan Kamal, were responsible for transporting Team England’s World Cup gear from the team’s pre-tournament base in Florida to their training camp at Swope Soccer Village in Kansas City, Missouri. Along the way, the duo liberated roughly $18,000 worth of gear from the shipment.
When the shipment arrived at the training facility, members of the team’s logistics crew noticed that some items were misplaced in the trailer, noting that they had packed the items in a specific way and they had been disturbed. The crew requested to look in the cab of the truck, but were initially denied by Salik and Kamal. After the team told the pair they could either search the truck or call the police, the drivers returned the merchandise to the team.
Among the items taken from the trailer were cleats, shoes, jerseys, soccer balls and other World Cup apparel.
According to the drivers, the two did not steal the merchandise; they claim they were given permission to “take what they wanted.”
On Saturday, June 13, Jackson County (Missouri) Prosecutor Melesa Johnson announced that Salik and Kamal had each been charged with one count of receiving stolen property. The charge is a felony under Missouri law and could carry a sentence of up to seven years if convicted.
“Jackson County will not tolerate any criminal activity that targets World Cup visitors, including the international teams that have traveled here to compete,” Johnson said in a statement. “We thank the Kansas City Police Department and our on-call attorneys for their quick work investigating this incident and filing charges immediately. Our office is committed to holding these individuals accountable.”
A Jackson County judge has set each defendant’s bond at $75,000. LL
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