Andy Burnham held two undisclosed hospitality dinners with Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak during his time as mayor of Greater Manchester, new details reveal. These dinners, which took place at Etihad Stadium matches in 2017 and 2018, were not included in a recent statement by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) outlining Burnham’s dealings with the club.
The dinners were recorded in a previous GMCA register of declarations, which listed a hospitality dinner in August 2017 with then-Manchester City Council leader Richard Leese and the club’s chairman during an Everton match, valued at £300. Another entry noted a dinner at the Manchester City versus Manchester United derby in April 2018, valued at around £699. Burnham had previously declared these hospitality events, alongside tickets to an Ed Sheeran concert at the stadium in May 2018. However, that register has since been removed from the GMCA website, which currently only publishes entries from the current mayoral term starting in 2024.
The GMCA’s statement from Monday confirmed Burnham 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. It also mentioned an informal meeting in the stands at a 2019 testimonial match for former City player Vincent Kompany. The statement noted Burnham was a guest of Manchester City at home matches on “a small number of occasions” but did not specify that these included the hospitality dinners with the chairman.
Downing Street defended the dinners as hospitality received at home games, which had been declared, rather than separate formal meetings with the club’s chairman. Despite this, political pressure on Burnham to clarify his interactions with Manchester City has intensified since the club was found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations.
In September, an independent commission concluded that Manchester City had “systematically” broken rules between 2009 and 2018. The club was found to have created “sham” contracts with commercial partners to funnel over £830 million into football operations secretly. The club denies wrongdoing and has lodged an appeal against the verdict, with sanctions yet to be announced.
Burnham, who stepped down as mayor in June, has faced scrutiny over his previous statements about the club. At Prime Minister’s Questions last month, he said he would be “really concerned” if the club’s owners decided to sell. When asked if anyone at Manchester City had raised the charges with him, he replied: “They did not raise those issues with me.” He added that he welcomed transparency, saying, “It is why I asked the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), in response to a call from the leader of the Opposition and others, to set out a full statement of my key dealings with the owners of Manchester City Football Club.”
Conservative politicians have called for greater transparency. Tory shadow sports minister Louie French said Burnham had promised “full transparency” on his dealings with the club, which was “essential after his inappropriate intervention into football.” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch demanded that No 10 release all details of meetings between the prime minister and senior club figures.
Burnham told the Rest Is Politics podcast last week that he planned to publish details of his meetings with Manchester City in his mayoral role. “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,” he said.
The GMCA has yet to clarify why the two hospitality dinners were not mentioned in Monday’s statement. BBC News has asked for further details on the authority’s policy regarding publication of hospitality and meeting records, noting entries dating back to 2022 remain online despite the current mayoral term beginning in 2024.
Earlier this month, Sir Richard Leese defended a decade-old agreement between Manchester City Council and the club’s owners, Abu Dhabi United Group. A University of Sheffield report found land had been leased to ADUG at below-market rates. The company is linked to the United Arab Emirates royal family.
Manchester City remains under scrutiny as the club prepares to appeal the independent commission’s ruling. The political debate continues over the relationship between elected officials and football clubs amid allegations of financial misconduct.
According to BBC Sports.
