Finance guru: The ‘pressure’ is on at Man City amid new £4m sponsor controversy
Man City may have failed to do their due diligence on commercial partner Wega because they are under “pressure” to take the highest offer at all times.
That is the view of finance expert Doctor Dan Plumley, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the latest controversy surrounding City’s commercial department.
City have been partnered with contactless card payments platform Wega since 2015.
Research from Off The Pitch published last Thursday (30 June) shows that Wega have sold just 145 pre-paid cards despite having paid City £4million throughout the course of their relationship.
Wega also came under fire earlier this year when an investigation by Off The Pitch found that they seemingly had no staff or no active products and were being run out of a mailbox in London.
Plumley suggested why a club with the resources of City would get into bed with such a company.
“It’s always odd because you expect due diligence to be done, and it should be done,” the Sheffield Hallam University exper told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“But a lot of the time in football, you’re unsurprised by this sort of thing. How often do we talk about an offer being on the table and the club accepting simply on the basis that it has the highest cash value?
“Even at City’s level, there is still that pressure on to take the money when it is available. So yes, you’re always looking for due diligence. But in many ways, it isn’t surprising.
“The club themselves often push the noise and the backlash to one side when it comes to light.
“The downside is that they’ve associated themselves with this. But in the grand scheme of things, nobody really pays that much attention to it, rightly or wrongly.”
In other news, Man City tell Nathan Ake he’s free to find new club amid Newcastle United update.