City go Cryptic | Partnership with 3Key suspended

[Stiff Little Wingers]

Embarassing moment for the club, can't quite comprehend how they have allowed it to get to the stage where they announced the partnership.

"Do they exist?" is a pretty fundamental question during due diligence.

Completely agree. There’s a few too many serious cock ups happening at the club recently such as this, the fiasco with ticketing and customer service and how the Mendy situation got to this stage.

 

[117 M34]

You'd think the deal would include a fair amount of cash being involved.
Bit strange that it was done over email without speaking to an actual person.

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

So you don't think these professional journalists should be held to their own standards? Is that unfair? You were giving these journos kudos almost.

I think I was pretty clear, the club have been careless either way and it could have been much worse, if they do turn out to be bogus. It's a fuckup in my opinion, even if they turn out to be legit, the club should be better than this. They should have been able to answer all these questions immediately.

The question does remain though... Why weren't these same journos interested in the betting company, that have been paying United for some time? That's not whataboutery, which if you didn't know, would be a complete deflection/refusal to address an issue based on something else(that's not what people are doing by mentioning that). The only thing not being addressed, is what some here are trying to highlight and others are trying to excuse, with a buzzword(that's all it is). They use that word, to make something they don't like, disappear from the conversation.

That betting company have the exact same question marks over them. Who are they? Why do they seem to have no online presence, with nobody to contact? United have taken money from them and it's been used that as part of their break even calculations for the governing bodies(I assume). That's potentially a much bigger story.

I've missed the United story which betting company was it?

HTH, Yabo, Mopay or someone else?


Edit: Just seen above it;s HTH

 

[Metalartin]

I've missed the United story which betting company was it?

HTH, Yabo, Mopay or someone else?

HTH, is the one I've just learned about. Most of their websites are unaccessible and the one that is, has been under construction since before the deal was announced. The deal is said to be worth £4m a season and was announced in May 2021. So it didn't start as far back as I thought it did but Rabin seems to think Yabo Sport looked suspect too. They sponsored(betting partner) United before HTH. They do have a website(Bayern players on the landing page...) but have no online presence either. That deal started in 2019 and was believed to be worth £2-3m per season.

Since it's not City, nobody is suggesting their owners are funnelling money into their club, to meet break even requirements(City fans really should, just for the fun of it). Money laundering, has been touted around as an explanation to it, it could also be the same case with 3Key.

it is estimated that 1 trillion US dollars of untraceable money is bet through unregulated bookmakers annually.

He did a tweet on all the above a while back, which I saw yesterday, I'll see if I can find it again.

Here is the Rabin twitter thread about it, if anyone's interested:

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

HTH is the one I've just learned about. Rabin did a tweet on it a while back which I saw yesterday, I'll see if I can find it again.

Long article about the problem of these betting companies here:

The trillion-dollar gambling game - josimarfootball.com

Is the Premier League used as part of an unprecedented money-laundering operation?

josimarfootball.com

HTH mentioned in it including the non functioning UK site for HTH.

Lots of problems with so many of these companies and somewhat puts our potential shit show with 3key into perspective.

Far eastern companies, money laundering, dodgy sites, dodgy characters etc etc.

 

[Maly]

Will the media be asking utd about their partnership with HTH, a Chinese betting company?

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It's been a couple of years since their partnership announced, their website isn't even operational.

There is no company info either.

Whataboutery or hypocrisy?

 

[mccity]

Embarassing moment for the club, can't quite comprehend how they have allowed it to get to the stage where they announced the partnership.

"Do they exist?" is a pretty fundamental question during due diligence.

I'd wager the club knew precisely what this was and naively didn't anticipate the backlash.

 

[Maly]

The etymoloIogy of the word suggests it was created by a Northern Irish politician during the 1970s rather than journos with an agenda post 2008.

Hypocrisy is routinely pointed out on this forum. It could have its own sub forum to be honest it's so common.

What you don't seem to be able to do is criticise the club in any way, even when like today it is completely justifiable.

The club fucked up (multiple people, not an individual), so the club has egg on their face. I don't expect them to make that mistake again. Let's move on.

Of course the club can be criticised but what Waspish posted wasn’t whataboutery, he was merely pointing out the hypocrisy

 

[cptaidan88]

So you don't think these professional journalists should be held to their own standards? Is that unfair? You were giving these journos kudos almost.

I think I was pretty clear, the club have been careless either way and it could have been much worse, if they do turn out to be bogus. It's a fuckup in my opinion, even if they turn out to be legit, the club should be better than this. They should have been able to answer all these questions immediately, same day.

The question does remain though... Why weren't these same journos interested in the betting company, that have been paying United for some time? That's not whataboutery, which if you didn't know, would be a complete deflection/refusal to address an issue based on something else(that's not what people are doing by mentioning that). The only thing not being addressed, is what some here are trying to highlight and others are trying to excuse, with a buzzword(that's all it is). They use that word, to make something they don't like, disappear from the conversation.

That betting company have the exact same question marks over them. Who are they? Why do they seem to have no online presence, with nobody to contact? United have taken money from them and it's been used that as part of their break even calculations for the governing bodies(I assume). That's potentially a much bigger story.

This isn't about the quality of journalism around - or the legitimacy of other clubs sponsors, you are missing the fundamental point.

City should not have signed and announced a partnership with a company that does not exist.

It is an unusual and thankfully rare misstep, but it is an undeniable cause for embarrassment.

 

[BolinCell]

Just get an company from Saudi Arabia to sponsor us and then we can sponsor a team from Saudi Arabia. All sorted.