English football club Manchester City has suspended its partnership with a cryptocurrency startup after apparently failing to perform due diligence before signing.
According to Daily Mail correspondent Jacques Gauguin, “Manchester City is conducting further investigations” into 3key Technologies, the crypto company with which the club entered into an agreement on November 12. At the time, the football club said it would partner with 3key to raise funds. Awareness of their reporting on decentralized finance or DeFi and trade analysis products as a regional partner.
However, Manchester City will fall back after an online search revealed, according to the Guardian, that company executives have little or no digital footprints, and it seems impossible to verify the information. Cointelegraph was unable to locate the contact information of Ryan Hodder, who was named 3key Marketing Director in the ad.
“The closest person to the confirmed information is an image of a man with a gingerbread man in a plaid suit who could be 3Key growth strategist Jacob Keane,” said Paul McCains, the Guardian reporter.
While 3key is potentially a legitimate DeFi company, and its CEOs simply prefer to remain in the shadows on the Internet, the lack of available information is suspicious. During the 2018 ICO boom, several famous people were duped into promoting scam token projects, including actor Steven Seagal and boxing promoter Floyd Mayweather. However, it is unusual for an organization like the English Premier League football club to announce a partnership with a relatively unknown crypto company and then quickly exit without giving a reason.
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According to Forbes magazine, Manchester City FC ranks sixth in the list of the most expensive football club in the world, with an estimated value of $ 4 billion. In addition to the 3key agreement, the club also announced in March that it had partnered with science interaction platform Socios.com to launch a fan token on the Chiliz blockchain.
