Andy Burnham has said he will make public all of the dealings he had with the owners of Manchester City FC during his time as Mayor of Greater Manchester.
The prime minister has been under pressure over comments he made after the Premier League confirmed the club had been found guilty of breaching financial rules over an eight-year span.
Asked if he was concerned about the potential for the owners – led by United Arab Emirates royal family member Sheikh Mansour – to sell Man City, Burnham told BBC News: ‘I would be really concerned to lose them.
‘They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester and obviously the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is.’
He also thanked the City Football Group for the money that was invested into the Etihad Stadium and the wider city.
In an interview with podcast The Rest is Politics, Burnham said he did not misspeak and urged people not to ‘conflate’ the football issues with the issues around investment.
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He said: ‘The vast majority of people in the country will say football needs integrity and it needs to convey the sense that the rules apply to everybody.
‘That is crucially important, but the process is independent now and it has to run its course.’
The PM also brought up comments made by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch last week, calling for him to publish all meetings with Man City bosses while he was mayor.
Badenoch told GB News: ‘He should. I’m surprised he hasn’t done that already.’
Asked for specifics about what should be included, she said: ‘Everything. The Freedom of Information requests should get those things out. Otherwise, what’s being hidden?’
In his podcast appearance, Burnham committed to fulfil her request but said his interactions were minimal.
He said: ‘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. And that is right, and I will put that all out there.’
Manchester City confirmed on October 1 that they are appealing the finding that the club breached Premier League rules.
An independent commission had found the club benefitted from more than £830 million in secret funding between 2009 and 2018, a period of great success.
In a statement announcing the appeal, Man City said: ‘The club’s firm position is that, on multiple grounds, the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe.
‘The club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case.’
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