UK PM Burnham to publish Manchester City dealings after intervention draws criticism

Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he will publish all details of his dealings with Manchester City in his previous mayoral role after his intervention in support of the football club’s owners raised eyebrows.

Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch had urged him to publish “everything” related to his work with the club as Greater Manchester mayor.

City have been found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations between 2009 and 2018. The club maintained their innocence and appealed against the verdict.

Burnham said last month he would be “really concerned” if City’s Abu Dhabi owners sold the club in the wake of the finding, crediting them with being “a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester”.

His office sought to clarify his comments afterwards, saying the prime minister was clear the judgment is serious and that where wrongdoing is established, those responsible should face the consequences.

Burnham said he would “put out there” everything he had done to work with the club’s owners as mayor in an interview with the Rest is Politics podcast to be released on Monday.

He said that “the football issues are different from the investment issues”.

“But I see now people trying to conflate these things. I’ve been asked by the leader of the opposition to publish details of my meetings, which I’m happy to do.

“I will 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. That is right and I will put that all out there.

“But the football issues, they are serious and have to be dealt with, and the process is independent and it has to run its course. But I think everybody should separate the investment issues because they’re not the same thing.”

The Premier League said an independent commission found City arranged “sham” commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the period, which were part of a disguised funding scheme, whereby those companies were required to pay only a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees.

The commission found that the remainder was funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, which had majority ownership of the club.