Prime Minister Andy Burnham had one formal meeting with Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak while mayor of Greater Manchester, according to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
A GMCA statement said the meeting took place in October 2021 at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit, arranged by the Department for International Trade.
He also met Al Mubarak informally in the stands at a City home fixture in September 2019, when attending Vincent Kompany’s testimonial as a guest of the club.
Burnham said on Sunday he would release details of his meetings with senior figures at Manchester City.
It follows criticism of his comments in the wake of the club being found guilty of all charges related to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.
A GMCA spokesperson said Burnham had been a guest at City home matches on a “small number of occasions” and that the hospitality had been “declared in the usual way”.
The GMCA also said representatives of Greater Manchester sporting clubs would “routinely join business delegations” on international visits during Burnham’s time as mayor.
It noted this included Manchester United representatives travelling to Austin and Dublin, Lancashire County Cricket Club joining a delegation to India, and City staff supporting visits to China and Japan.
Shadow sports minister Louie French said that Burnham “cannot hide behind the GMCA” and “must take responsibility for this himself” and urged him to “come clean about his relationship with City Football Group”.
“This is far from the full transparency that football fans deserve,” French said.
“We have been given precious little information about these meetings, what was discussed and what may have been agreed. If Burnham has nothing to hide, why is he being so tight-lipped?
“His bizarre intervention in defence of Man City’s owners has raised serious concerns among fans.”
An independent 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.
Burnham’s previous role as mayor of Greater Manchester has raised questions about his relationship with City’s Abu Dhabi ownership, with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch demanding that No 10 release all details of meetings between the prime minister and senior figures at the club.
“I’ve been asked by the leader of the opposition to publish details of my meetings, which I’m happy to do, and I’m going to,” Burnham told the Rest is Politics podcast.
“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.”
The prime minister initially told the BBC he would be “really concerned” if Manchester City’s owners decided to sell up following the guilty verdict, before later denying that his reaction had “downplayed the seriousness of the findings”.
However, some Premier League clubs were so “astonished” by Burnham’s stance that, according to sources, they were “concerned” about political interference in the appeal process.
Sanctions are yet to be announced, and City have lodged an appeal against the verdict.
City returned to action for the first time since the guilty verdict when they played at Liverpool on Sunday, winning 3-0.
Burnham defends comments on Man City
Burnham was mayor of Manchester from 2017 until earlier this year and his tenure took place during a sustained period of success for City.
As mayor, he championed investment from the Gulf as a way of growing Manchester’s economy, a strategy which was initially pursued by the city’s leaders before Burnham became the inaugural elected mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
“I don’t think I misspoke,” said Burnham of his past comments on Manchester City’s owners.
“What I would say is my mind hadn’t been on all of the issues. My mind had been on Labour Party conference and I was doing interviews in relation to it.
“And also, I didn’t link those two things. You know, the questions linked those two things. What I would say is they’re very separate.
“The football issues are different from the investment issues. People will try and conflate those two things, but they shouldn’t, in my view.
“The football issues, the findings of the independent commission are serious, as I said in the interview.”
The entire process involving the charges against Manchester City is independent of the Premier League.
An independent commission held a 42-day hearing in 2024 which led to the verdict announced last month, with City also guilty of all charges except one relating to non-cooperation with the Premier League investigation.
The commission’s report said that “a number of important club witnesses gave false evidence in key respects and that some knowingly gave untrue and dishonest evidence”.
A separate independent appeal board will hear City’s appeal. The club continues to deny any wrongdoing.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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