September 16, 2024 | Read Online

Here's how former Colorado staffer Trevor Reilly tried to fundraise from Saudi Arabia

To the FOIAmobile!

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

Back on August 19, Colorado assistant football coach Trevor Reilly resigned. It’s unusual for a high-level staffer to resign right before the start of the season, but that news alone would have probably made it a one-day news story. But the reported why behind that resignation was particularly interesting.

First reported by the Colorado Buffaloes affiliate for Sports Illustrated, Reilly mentioned multiple frustrations with the program’s NIL policies as part of the reason for his resignation. Via the letter, first reported by SI:

"The arrangement was that, because I did all the NIL work at Jackson and got us through, you guys would pay me a modest salary and make me the Special Teams Coordinator, which should have freed up time for me to handle NIL activities," Reilly wrote.

"You paid me $90,000 a year and let me handle special teams. … I burned through all my contacts in my Mormon community, which is worth about $3 trillion. Now, I can't get these people to answer my calls because I just found out today that none of my endeavors will happen.

"I even went to Saudi Arabia and got a meeting with the Saudis, who were interested in pursuing
business. I have email receipts to prove it, and you guys let it fall flat on its face."

Extra Points has also obtained a copy of the legislation letter via an Open Records Request, and can confirm the accuracy of the quoted passage.

Per the SI story, Reilly stated that he acted “on his own accord”, and not at the behest of the university or coach Deion Sanders.

When I read Reilly say “…I have email receipts to prove it”…I got curious. So I filed additional open records requests to see if there was specific communication from Reilly to agents of Saudi Arabia, or documentation specific to his plan to fundraise there.

And lo and behold, on Christmas Day of 2023, Reilly sent the following email:

According to a radio interview that Reilly did with ESPN 700 in Salt Lake City, Reilly would have sent that email from Amman, Jordan. Via CBS:

Reilly also said in an interview with Utah-based radio station ESPN 700 that he traveled to Amman, Jordan, to meet with the Jordanian government during the 2023 holiday season and spent time with the Saudi Tourism Authority during his venture to Saudi Arabia.

"I spent two months and a lot of my own personal money and a lot of my time I sacrificed," Reilly said. "I spent Christmas in a Turkish bathhouse in Amman, Jordan. Saying hi to my kids, 'Hey, I'll see you in a couple weeks.'"

How the Kingdom responded, along with details about the pitch, after the jump: