Manchester City have suspended their partnership with the mysterious cryptocurrency start-up company, 3Key.
The company was named by City as an “official regional partner in decentralised finance trading analysis” last week as part of a commercial expansion by the Premier League champions. However, that process has now been halted, with the decision believed to be based on 3Key’s lack of online presence.
As the Guardian reported on Wednesday, individuals named as 3Key executives on a recent press release do not have a digital footprint, while on Tuesday, two websites associated with 3Key went offline.
“Manchester City conducts due diligence in respect of all of its partnerships,” a club spokesperson said. “Manchester City’s partnership with 3Key Technologies has been announced but has not been activated in respect of any specific products or services in any part of the world.
“Prompted by the club’s interactions with 3Key Technologies in recent days, Manchester City is now conducting further enquiries regarding 3Key Technologies and the partnership has been suspended pending satisfactory resolution to all of those inquiries.”
In announcing the deal last week, City hailed the tie-up. Stephen Cieplik, the senior vice president of global partnership sales for City Football Group, said: “We are excited to partner with 3Key in their journey to simplify the decentralised finance (DeFi) trading analysis user experience through the power of football to engage with our fans with a range of content and activations.” 3Key is yet to comment.