I’m not usually one to ‘news hop’ on stories, but when it’s the biggest sports business story ever (?) it’s hard not to. And I was going to post this next week, but there is no time like the present.

For those living under a rock, an independent commission found Manchester City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, and found that the club’s Abu Dhabi sponsorship agreements between 2009/10 and 2017/18 were a ‘sham’.

The TL/DR is that these sponsorships used companies such as Etihad to mask owner investment, with the owner in question being ADUG (Abu Dhabi United Group).

From a crypto perspective, City’s first partner was in December 2020, more than two years after the last season the financial charges span. Nonetheless, everything under current ownership has been (rightfully) called into question.

The verdict first got me asking how much of City’s revenue since then has come from crypto. Which then ended up with me in a rabbit hole about their biggest sponsor, OKX, and their closeness to the UAE, and in particular — certain licensing arrangements during their time as Manchester City sponsors.

Discussed in this edition of Sporting Crypto:

1) City’s commercial rise 📈

2) The 115 charges ⚖️

3) Crypto sponsorship 🎽

4) OKX in the UAE 🇦🇪

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In the season before the 2008 Abu Dhabi takeover, Manchester City posted £82 million of revenue, and £21 million of it was commercial, per the Telegraph.

By 2012/13, turnover had reached £271.0 million, with £143.0 million of that from what City’s accounts call “other commercial activities”, per the club’s annual report. It hit a record £715.0 million in 2023/24, and 2024/25 at £694.1 million, with £340.4 million of that in ‘other commercial income’.

The thirteen seasons from 2012/13 to 2024/25 add up to £6.65 billion of turnover in City’s published accounts.

The independent commission’s redacted Core Decision says “Each of the AD Sponsorship Agreements… was a sham”, with the sponsors’ names removed.

It says City’s accounts “wrongly recorded as income sums that ought to have been treated and recorded not as income but as equitable contributions from ADUG”, and that City’s income across those years was “hugely overstated by over £830 million”.

City said they were “disappointed and surprised” and that the club “is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League”. They have appealed this ruling, and sanctions will be decided at a separate hearing in front of the commission.

That’s a lot of ‘sponsorship’ that wasn’t really sponsorship.

So when it comes to crypto, is there any impact on how we view Manchester City’s activities?

City’s accounts split revenue into matchday, UEFA broadcasting, other broadcasting and other commercial activities.

I went through every annual report and financial report City publishes (by that I mean, my agent did), from 2013/14 to 2024/25, and OKX only appears in the narrative pages, six times in total.

City’s largest deal in this space by far is OKX. The cryptoasset exchange. OKX are one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, and have sponsored the likes of McLaren Racing amongst others, as well as Manchester City.

They became City’s official crypto exchange partner in March 2022, with financial terms not disclosed. In July 2022 they became the front of the training kit sponsor for 2022/23, in a deal City AM described as “worth tens of millions of pounds per season”, and Forbes put at more than $20 million.

In June 2023, OKX moved onto the sleeve of the men’s and women’s match shirts.

A source told Forbes the deal would pay more than $70 million over three years, including the two previous agreements, with the Daily Mail reporting £55 million over three years. City’s own 2023/24 annual report calls the sleeve deal “an uplift from the previous agreement as Official Training Kit partner”.

For comparison, Manchester United’s training kit deal with Tezos was reported at £20 million a year in February 2022.

So taking the reported numbers at face value, we can estimate OKX at around £18 million ($23.5m) a season from 2022/23, plus around £2.5 million for the exchange partnership’s first months in 2021/22, which is a guess because that specific value has never been reported.

That’s roughly £57 million ($75m) across four seasons.

The value is far less interesting than the timing

OKX’s first Man City deal was announced on 4 March 2022.

→ Two weeks later, OKX sponsored the closing party at Crypto Expo Dubai.

OKX went on to sponsor City’s training kit on 11 July 2022.

→ Three days later, on 14 July 2022, they announced a provisional licence from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) “to provide services to qualified investors in the UAE”.

VARA gave OKX’s Middle East entity a preparatory licence on 15 June 2023, with an office at Dubai World Trade Centre and plans for 30 staff.

→ Fifteen days later, on 30 June 2023, OKX moved onto City’s sleeve in the deal described by Manchester City’s own accounts as ‘an uplift’.

OKX announced their full VASP (virtual asset service provider) licence on 16 January 2024, though it stayed “non-operational” until they met VARA’s remaining conditions, per their release. They officially launched in the UAE on 10 October 2024 at the Museum of the Future, and Pep Guardiola was the special guest, on stage with OKX’s chief marketing officer Haider Rafique talking about the City partnership.

In May 2025, Khaleej Times profiled Rafique, credited him with the City sleeve deal, and noted he went to school in Abu Dhabi. He told them “I think we can do a lot more with Man City, because I think people living here feel Man City is a [beacon of] national pride for them.” And “I want to bring Pep here and do a session. I want (star striker Erling) Haaland to kick a ball from one tower to another.”

On the face of it, this looked like a standard sponsorship deal, and the numbers in question are not huge. But lining this up against announced sponsorship deals, with the context surrounding Manchester City’s 115 charges, one can’t help but wonder whether this was more about licensing, rather than sponsorship.

City Football Group’s reputation, credibility and legitimacy have been badly damaged by the charges. And it’s funny that, whilst I’m unsure that OKX’s sponsorship falls under the same ‘sham’ description that the independent panel attached to many of Manchester City’s sponsorship deals, there is certainly a question mark to now be attached to the timings of OKX’s VASP licenses.

Concurrently, as I write this, OKX and NYSE parent ICE have notified the SEC that it intends to launch a tokenized securities trading venue under the U.S’ new innovation exemption rules.

There is a story to be told here, I’m sure. For now, I’ve just tried to join some dots. OKX are one of the largest exchanges in the world and no doubt legitimate, and perhaps the Manchester City sponsorship was just the cost of doing business.

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