By Mark Baber
June 17 – Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City fear their worldwide “secret scouting database” may have been “hacked” by an employee of a unnamed Premier League rival, according to unsourced reports in British Sunday tabloid newspapers.
The reports, widely picked up by other media outlets and discussed on social media, claim officials at the club’s Etihad Stadium are thought to have brought in “espionage experts” to investigate the apparent security breach of their online performance analysis system known as Scout7 which covers every player the club has targeted at home and around the globe.
Fans on social networks reacted with scepticism to the revelations that City’s “buy list” may have been hacked but the discovery of the leak could apparently be linked to City’s recent signings of Fernandinho and Jesus Navas.
With new boss Manuel Pellegrini set to take charge and player values rocketing, an anonymous Premier League chief scout told the Sunday People: “Having someone else – especially a rival – access that information and see which players you are looking at, which players you may buy and which ones are being monitored over a defined period would be seen as catastrophic.”