Manchester City suspends partnership with the suspicious crypto firm

Manchester City, the English football club, has decided to suspend a partnership with 3key, a startup crypto firm after the company failed to do its due diligence before signing. The two companies had joined hands on November 12. At the time, the football club announced it would be collaborating with the startup to raise awareness of the club’s DeFi trading analysis product.

Manchester City is reportedly avoiding the agreement following The Guardian’s report on the company’s executive’s internet searches. As per the report, the executives have very little information available on the internet, and that too is unverifiable.

TheCoinRise also tried to find the verified contact information of the 3key’s announced chief marketing officer (CMO) Ryan Hodder but was unable to locate any.

Paul MacInnes, a reporter of The Guardian, stated:

“The closest anyone has come to verified information is a photo of a man with a ginger beard in a checked suit who may or may not be 3Key’s ‘chief growth strategist’ Jacob Caine.”

Manchester City processes the further enquiry

Jack Gaughan, the Daily Mail reporter, reports that Manchester City is further enquiring about the matter regarding 3key Technologies. Though one should not strike out the possibility of 3key being a legitimate service-providing platform in the DeFi space, the lack of information availability seems suspicious. 

Notably, during the 2018 ICO boom, many high-profile figures, including boxing promoter Floyd Mayweather and actor Steven Seagal got tricked into promoting scam projects.

However, it is really unexpected for an organization like Manchester City to publicly announce a collaboration with a relatively unknown firm and then back out without any explanation.

As per the reports by Forbes, Manchester City is one of the world’s most valuable football clubs with an approximate value of $4 billion. Earlier in March, the club also announced the launch of a fan token followed by a partnership with a fan engagement platform Socios.com.

As TheCoinRise reported recently, the Spain-based FC Barcelona also terminated its partnership with NFT marketplace Ownix after its involvement with Moshe Hogeg, the famous Israeli crypto tycoon who recently got arrested with sexual assault and crypto fraud allegations.