Millions of dollars stolen from Ontario Minor Hockey Association

Over the last decade alone, nearly $8M of youth sports funding has gone missing, with the primary culprits being those in positions of financial management for youth sports organizations, including the Ontario Minor Hockey Association, who were the victims of the largest single theft from a youth sports organization in North American history after $2.4M was taken by the OMHA's director of finance, in order to fund her alleged online gambling/shopping addition.

The perpetrator, whose identity remains unknown at this time while she awaits sentencing, reportedly made 84 transactions using funds from a league's secondary bank account on 35 different occasions before confessing her indiscretions to the OMHA's executive director - only after realizing she was about to bounce a massive scheduled payment.

This is just one of several stories uncovered by CBC Sports, who initiated an in depth investigation into these types of occurrences from the past 10 years, and the team investigating these despicable acts only took into account the cases in which civil suits were filed to in an attempt to get back the finances or where criminal charges were laid. As you might imagine, the actual figures are much, much higher.

In many cases, the funds taken from these organizations have led to complications in being able to continue their operations without extra assistance and, as a result, parents have been asked to fundraise well in excess of what is typical in order to avoid a cease in operations.

We've reached a point where the system may have to change in order to prevent things like this from happening. Whether these types of occurrences are due to an overall lack of transparency or just a little too much trust being afforded to individuals who maybe have not earned it, the governing body of these organizations will likely have to take things back to the drawing board, as the current system just does not work as intended.

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