Burnham Faces Scrutiny Over City Hospitality
An archived register of interests shows Andy Burnham twice accepted hospitality from Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak while mayor of Greater Manchester, The Sun reported on Tuesday night.
Opposition politicians accused the prime minister of understating his dealings with the club after he said he had held only one significant meeting with its leadership. Downing Street declined to comment.
The register, signed by Burnham on 7 December 2020, has since been removed from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) website, and The Sun said it located an archived copy. It records hospitality worth £338 in August 2017, when Burnham dined with Al Mubarak and Sir Richard Leese, then leader of Manchester City Council, at a City match against Everton, the club Burnham supports. It also lists a meal and seat worth £699 provided by the chairman at the Manchester derby in April 2018, and two tickets worth £150 for an Ed Sheeran concert at the Etihad a month later. The Sun valued the club-funded hospitality at almost £1,200 in total. Each item was declared at the time as provided by Manchester City Football Club. The paper said registers from Burnham’s second term as mayor remain online while those from his first term have been taken down.
Burnham told The Rest Is Politics podcast on Sunday that he would publish everything he had done with the club in his previous role, that none of it was recent, and that he had held only one significant meeting with City, in 2021. On Monday he told the House of Commons that all his dealings with City’s owners would be published. Hours later the GMCA issued a statement on his behalf saying he had been a guest at City home games on a small number of occasions and had met Al Mubarak informally in the stands at Vincent Kompany’s testimonial in September 2019. It said the only formal meeting between the two was at a government-organised investment summit in October 2021. The Sun said the statement did not mention either dinner, though both had been declared in council paperwork when they took place.
Reform MP Robert Jenrick said: “This whole saga stinks.” He accused Burnham of appearing to have lied about his links to City’s owners and said football fans deserved better than a prime minister compromised by the affair. Shadow Sports Minister Louie French said the disclosures fell short of the full transparency fans deserve, noted that little had been revealed about what was discussed or agreed at the meetings, and asked why Burnham was reluctant to say more if he had nothing to hide.
GMCA sources told The Sun that all gifts were declared at the time in line with its rules. The register shows the hospitality was logged when it was received, so the dispute centres on how Burnham and the authority have since described his contact with the club.
The Sun also pointed to financial dealings between the authority and a venture linked to City’s owners. It reported that two months after the 2017 dinner, the GMCA approved a £24.5 million loan to Manchester Life, a property venture between the city council and the club’s owners, Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), with Leese on its board. Three Manchester Life companies controlled by ADUG’s owner, Sheikh Mansour, received about £55.7 million from the authority, the paper said. Manchester Life says the loans were repaid in full with interest. The Sun reported the timing, but the material provided does not establish any connection between the hospitality and the loan. Leese, who stepped down as council leader in December 2021, is now an honorary president of the club.
The paper reported further contacts between City and the government. Al Mubarak met Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds inside No 10 in September, a fortnight before the rule-breach verdicts became public. It said Burnham joined City’s delegation at the opening of the club’s second office in China in 2018, and that Labour politicians have accepted nearly £300,000 in gifts and hospitality from the UAE and City, a claim it first made last week.
The story follows Burnham’s remarks after an independent commission found City had broken Premier League financial rules. He said he would be concerned if the club’s Abu Dhabi owners sold, and later denied that he had downplayed the findings. The Sun reported that sources in the UAE had indicated a particularly harsh punishment could jeopardise £30 billion of investment, a claim attributed to unnamed sources that could not be verified. City deny any wrongdoing and are appealing the findings.
