Tey said the initial plan was to take a “significant minority” stake of about 20 to 25 per cent, a figure that would make it worthwhile to get involved.
“If I invest two per cent, I think there’s not much point,” he said.
He roped in business partners and old friends Pang Sze Khai and Lee Kok Leong, and set up a company – Kickoff Ventures – to invest in Sampdoria.
“We do a lot of business in different fields together … (When) I have a deal, I tell them,” said Tey.
There were also plans for other investors to come in, but this didn’t materialise.
According to media reports, one of those linked to Sampdoria was Qatar Sports Investments, the owner of French giants Paris Saint-Germain.
At this point, Tey decided to put in more money.
“We all decided that (it’s) a project we want to carry on; we believe in the project,” he said. “That’s how I ended up from a significant minority to a majority which is now 58 per cent.”
CNA understands the total amount invested in Sampdoria, along with Italian partners, was 100 million euros (US$110 million).
Tey eventually bought Pang and Lee out of their stake in the club.
“I don’t think this (was) really their cup of tea – they are not hardcore football fans like me.”
STAYING BEHIND THE SCENES
Two years in, the Singaporean has continued to stay out of the spotlight. He hasn’t been involved in many media engagements, if at all, nor done any press conferences.
Tey said keeping a low profile is just who he is.
It’s also “by design” that an Italian – Manfredi, currently club president – is the face of Sampdoria instead, while the Singaporean stays “behind the scenes”.
“They can deal with the Italians much better – the language barrier, the cultural barrier.”
Yet earlier this year, he found himself in the headlines of local Genovese media. This came after a Norwegian outlet questioned Tey, Pang and Lee’s motives for getting involved with Sampdoria, by claiming they were involved in running gaming company FUN88.
The article premised this allegation on FUN88’s name and logo being registered by an Isle of Man-based company called Mustafar Limited – whose legal owners are Tey, Pang and Lee.
Tey told CNA that he’s one of the owners of Mustafar, which owns and has licensed out the FUN88 trademark to independent third-party licensed operators – which then run the betting site in various jurisdictions.
He said he had started out operating FUN88 about 15 years ago.
“Along the way as all these regulations changed, I said I didn’t want to get involved in the operator business,” added Tey.
Given that he had built up the business and the brand, he decided to trademark and license it out.
He called the whole affair a “non-issue”, and pointed to the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) not raising any concerns either.
To date, there’ve been no reports of authorities responding to the claim.
