sport news Manchester City's partnership with betting firm 8xBet is found to have anomalies trends now

After a week in which Manchester City announced the highest commercial revenues in the history of English football, and publicly confirmed they remain under investigation by the Premier League over alleged financial irregularities, the Mail on Sunday has uncovered new anomalies in one of City’s most recent commercial partnerships.

The reigning league champions trumpeted a deal with gambling firm 8xBet in the summer as they introduced ‘a new regional partnership that will see the brand become the Official Betting Partner of the club in Asia.’

This was followed by Norwegian magazine Josimar asking about apparent contradictions in 8xBet’s claimed history, from when they were founded to who actually worked for them. Neither City nor 8xBet responded then.

A glossy promotional video that announced Teddy Sheringham as an 8xBet ‘ambassador’ earlier this year was not intended to be anything but a ‘fictional narrative’, a source close to 8xBet says.

Yet 8xBet’s founder and acting CEO, Ryan Li, contradicted this in an interview in which he said: ‘Just like when a football club makes a star signing, we wanted to show our pride and excitement and to let everyone know about Teddy joining 8xBet. 

'So, the first step was to celebrate the partnership with our official signing ceremony, which is featured in our announcement video.’

Sheringham continues to promote the firm as an ambassador, and the video depicts a woman apparently representing 8xBet shaking hands on that contract.

The woman is actually a London-based model called Jasmine who more typically poses for bikini, lingerie and fashion shoots, and holds no role at 8xBet. The source says it is the ‘regular practice’ to use actors and models for such shoots.

Back in the summer, a LinkedIn profile of someone claiming to be 8XBet’s co-founded and CEO, Trinh Thu Trang, was deleted after it was shown her profile photo was a stock image.