UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham vows to disclose past dealings with Manchester City amid scrutiny following the club’s guilty verdict over more than 100 financial rule breaches
LONDON: British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised to make public his past interactions with Manchester City after the club was found guilty of breaching financial rules between 2009 and 2018.
Burnham, who was mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to June 2026, has faced criticism for initially expressing support for City’s Emirati owners, stating that he would be “really concerned” if they were to sell up.
The club is owned by Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family.
Downing Street subsequently had to backtrack, insisting that no one was “above the rules”, but the opposition has since demanded clarification regarding Burnham’s relationship with the club, which has driven significant investment in Manchester through partnerships with local authorities.
In an interview for the “The Rest is Politics” podcast set to air on Monday, Burnham said he would “quite clearly put out there everything that I have done working with them in my previous roles as Mayor of Greater Manchester”.
He said he only had “one significant meeting” which was in 2021.
Burnham added that the “football issues are different from the investment issues”.
People will try and conflate those two things, but they shouldn’t, in my view,” he said.
The 10-time English champions, who deny any wrongdoing, face an uncertain future after being found guilty of more than 100 breaches.
The Abu Dhabi-backed super-club was found to have arranged “sham” deals to artificially inflate revenues and reduce costs by more than £900 million ($1.2 billion) between 2009 and 2018.
Downing Street said earlier the “ongoing independent process” into the club must be “allowed to run its course and the outcome respected”.
Manchester City has launched an appeal against the damning judgement that found the club guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.