This is one of the very few stories in football that is actually quite interesting, intriguing even. I can't remember a story with such silence from both parties. There are literally no noises coming from either club.
From having read through the the thread and the Times articles it looks to me that the guy in the Times was handed proof from either a current city employee or former employee of either club. The non disclosure agreement signed looks like the reason only one newspaper are reporting on it. The guy in the Mirror or Guardian can't go to his editor and legal team and say I want to print a story that could get us sued based on proof I know the Times have but I haven't actually seen.
In my line of work I would have access to a bidding system the sales teams use to get discounts for retaining and signing new customers. For years now I have had the admin login details ( I shouldn't have anymore) which means I can see the discounts other staff members are or aren't getting. For no other reason than I'm a bit nosey I would occasionally log in under the admin and have a gander at what other staff doing. Total guess work here but I suspect that is what the Liverpool guys where doing. As they were checking in on their own targets they decided to check what their mate at City was doing, it could be a lot more sinister than that but where the clubs not shopping in different stratospheres at that point in time?
These guys are apparently analytical geeks, they can't have been that stupid to think they could log in hundreds of times from their laptop and wouldn't be tracked eventually? If it was sinister then would they not have logged in from a library in Birmingham wearing a fake moustache and glasses or through a third party in Malta or somewhere?
From having read through the the thread and the Times articles it looks to me that the guy in the Times was handed proof from either a current city employee or former employee of either club. The non disclosure agreement signed looks like the reason only one newspaper are reporting on it. The guy in the Mirror or Guardian can't go to his editor and legal team and say I want to print a story that could get us sued based on proof I know the Times have but I haven't actually seen.
In my line of work I would have access to a bidding system the sales teams use to get discounts for retaining and signing new customers. For years now I have had the admin login details ( I shouldn't have anymore) which means I can see the discounts other staff members are or aren't getting. For no other reason than I'm a bit nosey I would occasionally log in under the admin and have a gander at what other staff doing. Total guess work here but I suspect that is what the Liverpool guys where doing. As they were checking in on their own targets they decided to check what their mate at City was doing, it could be a lot more sinister than that but where the clubs not shopping in different stratospheres at that point in time?
These guys are apparently analytical geeks, they can't have been that stupid to think they could log in hundreds of times from their laptop and wouldn't be tracked eventually? If it was sinister then would they not have logged in from a library in Birmingham wearing a fake moustache and glasses or through a third party in Malta or somewhere?