The Strange Case of Liverpool FC Hacking Manchester City’s Scouting Network

Yesterday a news story appeared in The Times concerning Manchester City  and Liverpool which could have further repercussions.

As Manchester City fans we have become accustomed to the increasingly negative coverage of our Club in The Times newspaper. Insinuations about the ownership of our Club and some gleeful reporting regarding FFP have become a staple feature of the newspaper and accordingly many City fans have turned away from the publication.

It is therefore somewhat curious that yesterday a story appeared in The Times painting Liverpool as the bad guys regarding an incident which dates back to 2012/13 and accounts for some of the perceived bitterness between the clubs.

Since yesterday the story has been picked up a number of other news outlets but seems to have strangely been buried by others, leading many City fans to cite the role of Liverpool FC and their network of fans in burying the story.

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The substance of the story broken by The Times and subsequently carried by a series of other news outlets concerns some activity at Manchester City back in 2012/13.

The media are reporting an incident which they say happened back in 2012/13 season and seems to potentially be covered by a confidentiality agreement. Quite why this has featured now is open to speculation because although the rudiments of the story have been known for some time, the public naming of Liverpool FC as the club involved seems highly damaging and may even result in further action being taken.

The report states a number of members of City’s scouting department left and joined Liverpool back in 2012, indeed two of these individuals appear to hold high profile roles within Liverpool FC – one is the Head of Recruitment and another is Director of Football.

The allegations specifically refer to how staff employed at Liverpool FC used another staff member’s log on details to access the Manchester City scouting database, hundreds of times in 2012/13 season. This would appear to constitute an unlawful accessing of a computer database which in itself is against UK law and potentially carries a sentence of imprisonment.

Additionally, there is another issue at stake here in addition to breaking the law, which is stealing data you are not entitled to in order to gain an advantage is actually cheating and would appear to fall foul of the FA rules governing club behaviour and specifically the rules which exist in the Premier League. If you recall the furore over the “Spygate” scandal between Leeds United and Derby County last season, this story about the hacking into a database seems more serious.

Apparently Manchester City became suspicious when they were tracking an obscure young player who seemed to suddenly attract the interest of Liverpool at the same time and commissioned a forensic analysis of their computer systems to understand if their data had been compromised.

It would appear from the news reports that Liverpool FC agreed to pay £1 million in respect of a settlement of the matter without accepting liability. The terms of the agreement then seemed to have been made confidential.

The story as it has been reported in the national media would appear to cast doubt upon the sporting integrity of Liverpool FC which would be damaging to that club and it’s interests. It will be interesting to watch what happens next over the coming days as the leaking of this story to The Times newspaper seems odd at this point.

Liverpool FC have so far issued a statement which appears to decline to offer any comment on the story.