The Insider

«Now, look, very often, these bank guarantees aren't worth the paper they're written on. Like I saw one example where the bank guarantee came from that country's central bank, but when the money came, it came from a hundred different accounts, and you think, what on earth is going on there?»

By Philippe Auclair

Following the publication of Josimar's investigation into the links between Asian e-Gambling platforms and Premier League clubs, we were approached by a number of individuals who wished to provide us with additional information. One of these individuals is an industry insider who was intimately involved in a number of deals brokered by Premier League clubs with, in particular, Chinese e-Gambling operators. Some details of this conversation have been changed to protect our informer's anonymity.

What explains the prevalence of partnerships between Premier League clubs and East Asian e-Gambling platforms that are geared almost solely towards markets in their region, China in particular?
“There is so much commercial pressure from owners now, and so much money in that sector in Asia, that they go for it. And now this has expanded with the 'crypto space', FX traders, NFTs, fan tokens...Any club which brokers a commercial deal has to do due diligence, and some clubs are better at this than others. I did some work for one which was better than most at that; but even in that case, I didn't think our due diligence process was as thorough as it should have been. Ultimately, we'd do our due diligence, the legal team would come back with information about the company, and then, it'd be, 'cool, let's proceed'! And that was that, regardless of the findings. It was just a ...