While being driven across the northern tip of Morocco, Adrian Heath could not help but think of the places soccer had taken him.
The sport lifted him out of Newcastle-under-Lyme, England, and carried him to Stoke City FC, then to Everton FC, where in 1982 he became the team’s most expensive signing.
He became one of the first English soccer players to venture to Spain’s La Liga, signing with Espanyol in 1988. And when his playing days were done, the sport took him to the United States for coaching stints at Austin Aztex, Orlando City and Minnesota United.
The trip to Morocco was supposed to be another adventure: an interview for a coaching job in Saudi Arabia. On any other night, it might have looked beautiful as the city lights faded behind him. But on this night, Heath thought about what the game had given him.
Then he turned to look at his kidnapper in the driver’s seat of the sedan and wondered whether it would be soccer that now ended his life.
This wasn’t a story Heath planned on sharing. For more than a year, he kept his kidnapping quiet outside of telling close friends and alerting the League Managers Association, a trade union that represents managers in English soccer. Then he got a call from the FBI agent in charge of his case. It had happened to another manager.
“When we got that phone call from the FBI saying it’s happened again, I immediately broke down,” Jane Heath said. “You think it’s over, but it’s never going to go away … the thought of another family going through anything like that.”
He heard there might have been two cases before his. Now another after it. The Heaths decided staying quiet opened the door for others to face the same type of threat Adrian escaped.
In an interview last month, the Heaths recounted their three distressing days in November 2024. They agreed to tell the story on the condition they did not use names and specific locations, or any details that could threaten what remains an open investigation in the United States and England.
The FBI replied to an email saying their policy is to neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation. A spokesperson for Britain’s National Crime Agency, though, issued a statement: “We can confirm officers from the NCA are investigating allegations linked to a fake football consortium who are offering professional footballers employment, which has resulted in threats of violence and the transfer of monies with no employment or contracts actually existing.”
For the Heaths, recounting the details feels surreal even now. “It’s like a movie or an episode of ‘Homeland’ or something,” Adrian Heath said.
Heath, 65, spent the year after being fired by Minnesota United in October 2023 travelling with Jane, visiting his children, Harrison and Meg, and his four grandchildren. After 15 years of managing teams in the United States, a break was overdue. But when a call came in 2024 from an agent in Britain asking if he would be open to a job in Saudi Arabia, Heath said yes.
The job was eventually filled by another manager, but Heath kept an eye on the club. Things were going poorly. A few months later, he got another call from the same agent.
“Adrian, this job is going to come back around, and you were very close the last time,” the agent said. “Is it something you want to revisit?”
Heath said yes. Over the next few days, they discussed details: salary, budget, accommodations in Saudi Arahealthcare. bia, and
Adrian Heath made some calls to contacts who worked in Saudi Arabia, inSteven cluding Gerrard. They all had good things to say about the club and working in the Saudi leagues. Soon, the agent said the club’s owner wanted to meet with him. He asked if Heath could meet in Morocco, where the sheikh had hotels and other businesses.
“If we get everything done by Tuesfly day, we’ll you to Saudi for the announcement,” the agent said.
A plane ticket was sent for Nov. 17, and a reservation was made at a five-star hotel on the Mediterranean Sea.
“How this whole process happened is no different than how it happened with him going from England to US or him going from Orlando to Minnesota,” Jane Heath said. “There were no red flags behad cause they’d hours of conversations.”
Adrian Heath got on a flight to Tangier via Manchester. When he landed in Morocco on Nov. 18, two men greeted him at the airport. They handed him flowers, then ushered him to a sedan and set off for the hotel.
But after about 40 minutes, they turned off the main highway.
“Within 20 minutes, I’m starting to panic a bit because the lanes are going down and it’s getting dark,” Heath said. “We end up driving into this little harbour town, and we go into a sketchy neighbourhood. I was supposed to be staying at a beach hotel.”
The car turned down an alley and came to a stop. The men guided him into a small apartment building and then into a sparsely furnished, smoke-filled room.
Three men were in the room: a man in his mid-50s, another in his 30s and the third, in his late teens or early 20s, looked like the younger brother of the 30-something. “For the first hour, they didn’t really speak to me,” Heath said.
Then they sat Heath on the couch. “You obviously realise that this isn’t what you thought it was going to be,” the man in his 30s said to Heath. “This is how it’s going to work: You’re going to send us money.”
Heath said the number was well in the six figures, but declined to share the amount. “And if you don’t, you won’t see your wife again. You won’t see your two kids and your grandkids.”
It was clear the men had done their research. They took his wallet and phone.
For the moment, he needed to buy time. He seized on the seven-hour time difference. It was late in Morocco, which also meant it was past the end of the business day in the United States, he said.
“I was just thinking of ways to sort of try to string it out,” Heath said.
The Heaths had a routine when Adrian travelled for work. He would send a text upon landing at the airport, then initiate a video call when he got to the hotel. When he did not call this time, she called him. When he said everything was OK, and he was just busy, alarms went off in her head.
A short time later, one of the men in the room put a 15- to 18inch blade to Adrian Heath’s throat.
“Listen,” the man said. “You’ve got a few hours now to think this over.”
Heath sat on the couch through the night, his eyes closed as those around him drank and smoked. He pretended he was asleep, but was just trying to come to terms with what was probably going to happen to him.
He determined he had no good options. If he gave them the money, they would ask for more, he thought. But if he didn’t, the blade could come out again. He felt determined not to give any money.
As the sun rose in Minneapolis, his captors told Heath to call his wife.
Jane Heath was in bed when the call came. It was 6:30 a.m., but she had been awake. She barely remembers hearing him tell her he needed her to wire money.
“Listen to what I’m saying,” Heath said. “I need you to transfer some money.” She then made a split-second decision. “Adrian, we changed bank accounts less than 12 months ago,” she told him. “You’re the head name on it. I can’t transfer any money without you there.”
After some arguing, his captors hung up the phone. A minute later, they called back. This time, he asked for less money, but it was still six figures. Jane, in tears, stuck to her story. She couldn’t transfer anything.
“Listen, sweetie, don’t worry,” Adrian Heath replied. “I’ll chat to you in a bit.”
He hung up. Jane Heath immediately called Harrison Heath, a former MLS midfielder, to tell him what was going on with his father.
It was Harrison’s wife, Kaylyn Kyle, a TV analyst and former player for Canada’s national women’s soccer team, who took control of the situation. She directed her mother-in-law to check the Find My Friends app.
Incredibly, Heath’s kidnappers had taken his phone but neglected to turn off location services.
Jane Heath took a screenshot and texted it to Harrison, who called the sports agent who initially set up the meeting. Harrison demanded to know what was happening. He sent the agent the screenshot of where his father was. By chance, the father of a child on the youth soccer team Harrison coached in New Jersey was an official at an FBI office in New York. Harrison called him.
In Morocco, Adrian Heath leaned into negotiations with the kidnappers.
“Listen, I don’t know how this is going to end up, but bottom line, you’re not getting any money,” Heath told them. “You can see that the only chance you’ve got in getting any money is me going home and me wiring it to you. From there, you’re going to have to trust me, but that’s where we are.”
Heath said the knife came out again as they argued. Unbeknown to the coach, his family had sent the screenshot. Within minutes, things suddenly changed. “Like a light switch was flicked,” Heath said.
The 30-something kidnapper walked into the room. “Get your gear,” he said. “I’m taking you to the airport.”
He told Heath to get into the sedan. They took off toward the highway. With his phone back in his hands, he texted Jane four words: “I’m in a car.”
As they got closer to the airport, Heath started to believe he might get out of the situation alive. When they approached Tangier Ibn Battouta Airport, the car slowed at a corner near the entrance to the airport. The man told Heath to open the door, then grabbed him and shoved him out of the car.
“Before I’d even picked up my bag, the car had sped off,” Heath said.
Heath, though, had his passport, bag and wallet — without the $600 cash that was in it at the start of the trip. Considering the circumstances, that it was all he lost was a miracle.
He ran to the airport and to the first ticket desk he could see. There was a flight to Madrid in 30 minutes he could get on.
He did not ask the cost. He sprinted through security, unsure of where he could feel safe again. He FaceTimed Jane from the gate.
In all, he had spent about 24 hours in the apartment in Morocco. When he landed in Minnesota, Jane and the FBI were there waiting for him. “I literally collapsed into his arms,” she recalled.
The FBI provided security for Heaths for the next 28 days. Most of the next few weeks were spent inside their home. “This sounds crazy, but I’m going to use the word ‘lucky,’” Adrian Heath said. “How lucky we were. Because the one thing, listening to the FBI, they were just saying, ‘You’re very, very lucky to be back.’”
Heath alerted the managers’ union, so it might be able to prevent a similar incident. It created a new protocol, Heath said, so the organisation could confirm interest and interviews through the corresponding federation.
Richard Bevan, chief executive of the League Managers Association, provided a short statement via email, confirming awareness of the NCA investigation, but he would not comment further because the case was continuing.
Heath said he hoped the incident would help managers in the United States create a group like the LMA. His goal of talking about what happened in Morocco, he said, was so that other managers might be warned.
And he feels fortunate to be alive. “At times it seems surreal,” he said. “It was like the longest and quickest three days of my life. It gives everyone a chance to reevaluate their life and what’s actually important. And the only important thing is your family. Everything else is secondary.”
Beyond family, Heath realised how much soccer still means to him. He wants to work again, if only to have soccer bring something positive to his life, as it had for so long.
“I’ve got a new respect for how good our life is and how good I’ve had it,” he said. “I’ve worked hard, but I’ve had a great life. We’re talking about a year ago, virtually now, and I was sitting there that night thinking, ‘This is it, and I’ve still got so much I want to do.’ And so I still want to coach. I still want to get back out there. I’ve still got the enthusiasm.
“I know it sounds stupid, I’m thinking this is it, this is the end of it all. But the next part of it is really me talking about it and then getting back into it now.”
For Heath, it’s a mission to reinforce what he felt that night when he imagined the worst: that he wasn’t done yet.
The New York Times