Barcelona and Man City drop club crypto sponsors amid concerns

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LONDON

Concerns over two cryptocurrency companies led two of Europe’s main football clubs, Barcelona and Manchester City, to drop short-lived sponsorship deals on Friday.

Premier League champions City have suspended a deal with 3Key Technologies after concerns were raised about the limited digital footprint of the company and its executives.

Barcelona canceled a deal with Ownix ​​after a businessman linked to the company was arrested for cryptocurrency-related fraud.

Moshe Hogeg has been identified by Israeli media as one of the eight suspects detained, although police have not identified the high-tech entrepreneur and the owner of the team based in the capital Beitar Jerusalem. Hogegs’ lawyers, who could not be reached for comment, were cited as having denied the allegations.

Ownix ​​announced on November 5 that it was teaming up with Barcelona to launch non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, which would be purchased using the digital currency known as Ethereum. NFTs have reportedly allowed people to purchase digital certificates of authenticity of virtual items linked to team history.

In light of the information received today which goes against the values ​​of the club, the Catalan club said on Friday that FC Barcelona hereby communicate the cancellation of the contract to create and market NFT digital assets with Ownix With immediate effect.

Hogeg is a well-known figure in Israel after purchasing Beitar in 2018.

What was less clear this week was who are responsible behind 3Key, which City announced as a sponsor a week ago. City had said the company would become an official regional partner in decentralized financial analysis and advisory technology without specifying which region it was from.

The Times of London reported this week that founder Oliver Chen has said 3Key is in a start-up phase ahead of a product launch in the coming months. Their company statement listed business executives without an obvious online presence.

Driven by the clubs’ interactions with 3Key Technologies in recent days, City said in a statement on Friday, Manchester City are currently conducting further investigations into 3Key Technologies and the partnership has been put on hold pending a satisfactory resolution of all such requests. .

City said their sponsorship has not been activated for any specific product or service in any part of the world. While City said it performs due diligence on all of its partnerships, it was not clear how rigorous this has been given the media queries surrounding the internet searching the internet for staff details. of the company.

Author Martin Calladine had pointed out on Twitter that exceptionally for a partner of a major football club, the company’s website did not include contact details, head office or company number. Its digital channels were only a few months old, and its appointed staff have no digital footprints.

The contact form on the 3Key website was not working on Friday.

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Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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More AP football: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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