SINGAPORE — They waited for months to get tickets to the recent football match between European giants Manchester United and Inter Milan. But each time they asked Mohamed Hafidz Ja’afar about the tickets they bought from him, they said that he would come up with a different ruse.

On one occasion, he said the tickets — averaging S$50 each — had been delivered to him although he initially said the tickets would be sent directly to the buyers. Then, he said he was hospitalised for kidney stones. Other times, he said he was busy with a swim meet.

Nevertheless, the buyers — some of them long-time friends of Mr Hafidz — did not sense anything was amiss. Days before the match, they finally got their tickets — in PDF form — to the International Champions Cup match by email.

But their excitement slowly dissipated and turned sour when they were blocked from entering the National Stadium on July 20. A customer service officer told them that their tickets were fake and that they had been conned.

Others who have levelled accusations against Mr Hafidz claimed they never received tickets at all.

On Thursday (July 25), police confirmed with the media that a police report has been lodged against Mr Hafidz, adding that investigations are ongoing.

Swim Schooling — the school that Olympic champion Joseph Schooling set up in June last year — said it terminated Mr Hafidz’s employment on July 19. He had been hired as a manager on a part-time basis in 2017.

Mr Hafidz previously worked in communications at the Singapore Swimming Association and was later hired by the Schoolings in 2016 to help out with logistics. He was hired by Swim Schooling sometime in 2017 as an administrator before he became a manager.

Mr A Rahman, a 36-year-old events manager, told TODAY that Mr Hafidz contacted him through WhatsApp in late March, asking if he was looking to purchase tickets for the football match. They have been friends since their junior college days.

Mr Hafidz had offered to sell the tickets at a 20 per cent discount, Mr Rahman said. Tempted by the deal, the latter agreed. He ended up buying 12 tickets amounting to S$600 for his colleagues and himself.

Then came the delay in getting the tickets. Mr Rahman said he was initially told by Mr Hafidz that the tickets would be delivered to him directly but they never came. Each time he was asked about the tickets, Mr Hafidz would come up with a different excuse, said Mr Rahman.

But when he still had not received the tickets a week before the match, anxiety set in. Mr Rahman said he pressured Mr Hafidz for them, only to be told that he would email the tickets to him. Mr Rahman finally got them several days later.

“When I received the tickets, the prices, names and categories were printed on them correctly. I thought, ‘All right, it’s settled and we can go watch the match’. But when we tried to scan in, all of the tickets were invalid,” he told TODAY.

“The staff asked to check the customer number and it belonged to someone else with a different name. Someone else took a closer look and noticed an extra line, which was when they said that our tickets were fake,” he said.

Despite being stonewalled by Mr Hafidz several times, Mr Rahman said he never sensed something was amiss.

“I’ve known him since 2001, when we were in the same junior college. I even went to his wedding three years ago. I had no reason to doubt him plus he was a high-profile (figure) in local sports,” he added.

Mr Rahman is among several individuals accusing Mr Hafidz of cheating them. Others have taken to social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to vent their frustration on the alleged sale of fake tickets.

Another individual, who declined to be named and claimed he was cheated, said that he had bought tickets worth about S$600 from Mr Hafidz after the latter contacted him through Facebook in April.

Similar to Mr Rahman’s experience, the man — who is in his 30s and has known Mr Hafidz for more than 15 years — said that he did not have any suspicion when there was a delay in getting the tickets given that they were “old friends”.

“You wouldn’t expect your good friend to do something like this right?” he added.

Though the tickets did come, they turned out to be fake. When contacted, Mr Hafidz did not pick up calls or respond to texts.

“The next thing I know, he has gone missing in action. Calls went to voicemail and he did not respond to my messages on Facebook,” said the man.

“It’s not so much about the money, but about the broken trust that I’m saddened about.”

TODAY attempted to contact Mr Hafidz but the call went to an answering machine, which said that his “mailbox is full and cannot accept any more messages”.