Andy Burnham had two hospitality dinners with Manchester City football club’s chairman while mayor of Greater Manchester, it has emerged. The PM dined with Khaldoon Al Mubarak at matches in 2017 and 2018 – but this was not detailed in a statement on Monday by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) about his meetings with the club. Burnham has been under pressure to clarify his previous discussions with Man City since the club was found guilty of having “systematically” broken Premier League rules, which it will appeal. The PM, who was mayor until June, sparked widespread controversy when he said last month he would be “really concerned” if the club’s owners now sold up.
Separately, it has emerged that a representative from the club joined a trade mission to India this week alongside Burnham’s successor as mayor of Greater Manchester Bev Craig. The trade mission was organised by the business department, but as first reported in the Guardian,, external Manchester City’s invitation came from the Great North, a coalition of Northern mayors and regional leaders. The government said it played no role in approving the club’s presence on the trip. Man City guilty of ‘sham’ contracts and misleading accounts On Monday, the GMCA released a statement about Burnham’s meetings with Man City in his role as mayor for the region for almost a decade.
The statement said he had a formal meeting with Al Mubarak in October 2021 at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit, arranged by the Department for International Trade; and that he met the club chairman “informally in the stands” at a testimonial match in 2019 for former player Vincent Kompany. It also said that “in his capacity as mayor, he was a guest of Manchester City at home matches on a small number of occasions”. But the statement did not specify that this referred to, external two hospitality dinners he had with the Manchester City chairman at separate matches. A previous GMCA register of declarations for Burnham, seen by the BBC, detailed a “dinner with [then-Manchester City Council leader] Richard Leese and Chair of Man City” for an Everton match at the Etihad stadium in August 2017, valued at £300 for hospitality.
Below is another entry for “dinner with the Chairman at the Man City/Man Utd derby at the Etihad” in April 2018, valued at approximately £699. Burnham previously declared those dinners, alongside a £150 pair of tickets to see Ed Sheeran perform at the stadium in May 2018. But the register of declarations has since been deleted from the GMCA website, as first reported by The Sun. The BBC understands it is the authority’s policy to only publish entries from the current mayoral term.
BBC News has asked GMCA for more details about this policy – given its website has entries dating back to 2022, despite the current mayoral term beginning in 2024. Downing Street has defended the two dinners with Man City’s chairman, saying this was hospitality received at home games, which had been declared, rather than separate meetings with the club chairman. But political pressure on Burnham to be clearer about any former discussions with Man City is continuing to mount. Tory shadow sports minister Louie French said: “Andy Burnham promised the country and House of Commons full transparency on his dealings with Manchester City.
“This was essential after his inappropriate intervention into football.” And Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick said “this saga stinks” as he accused Burnham of having apparently “concealed his extensive links to Man City’s owners”. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded for several days that No 10 release all details of meetings between the prime minister and senior figures at the club. Burnham told the Rest Is Politics podcast last week he was “happy” to do this and would “quite clearly put out there everything that I have done working with them in my previous role as Mayor of Greater Manchester”. “None of it is recent, actually, in terms of the meetings I had.
I only had one significant meeting, actually, and that was in 2021.” Asked at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday whether anyone at the club had raised the charges they were facing with him or his team, Burnham said: “They did not raise those issues with me.” With the PM continuing to face pressure on the issue, he told MPs he was happy for “everything to be set out in full”, referring to the GMCA’s statement as “a full statement of my key dealings with the owners of Manchester City Football Club”. When asked by reporters why the statement did not refer to the two dinners, and what the difference is between “everything” and “key dealings”, the PM’s press secretary referred back to the GMCA statement. The list of meetings, which was published by the GMCA on Monday, did not include detail on what was discussed. The BBC has asked GMCA why the two dinners were not specifically mentioned.
In September Man City – which has dominated the top flight of English football for years – was found guilty by an independent commission of breaching Premier League financial regulations. The commission found City had broken rules over a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018 by creating “sham” contracts with commercial partners to secretly funnel more than £830m into their football operations. Sanctions are yet to be announced and City, which denies any wrongdoing, has lodged an appeal against the verdict. Earlier this month, Sir Richard Leese – who was head of Manchester City Council for 25 years until 2021 – defended a decade-old deal between the council and Man City owners Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG).
Under the partnership between the authority and the company, which is linked to the United Arab Emirates royal family, land was leased to ADUG at “below comparable rates”, according to a University of Sheffield report. Man City not ‘above the rules’, says No 10 after backlash to Burnham remarks Clubs fear political interference in Man City appeal
