Andy Burnham is facing calls from the Liberal Democrats to publish details of all his meetings with Manchester City’s owners, Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), and to declare all hospitality he has accepted at the Etihad Stadium.
The demand follows a week in which the prime minister was widely criticised for saying he would be “really concerned” if ADUG were forced to sell City after the club were found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial regulations. Downing Street issued two clarifications of his position on Thursday.
Burnham has also praised ADUG’s investment in Manchester and had close relations with the company — the vehicle through which Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008 — during nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester. That spell ended when he returned to parliament this summer.
The Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson for culture, media and sport, Anna Sabine, said Burnham’s ties to ADUG should be scrutinised, and is planning to write to Downing Street and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to demand details of their meetings.
“Football fans up and down the country deserve to know that the rules apply to everyone, however rich and powerful they are,” Sabine said. “When the prime minister leaps to the defence of a club’s owners within hours of a verdict, people are entitled to ask what their relationship is. Andy Burnham must come clean and publish details of every meeting and conversation he has had with City Football Group, Abu Dhabi United Group or UAE government representatives, going back to his time as mayor – and that includes any hospitality freebies received.”
Burnham, an Everton fan, has been pictured attending City games at the Etihad Stadium in hospitality areas, including in conversation with City’s chair, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, in 2019. The extent of that hospitality is unclear, because under GMCA regulations the public disclosure of gifts is available for current office holders without the submission of a freedom of information request.
He has not attended a City game since becoming prime minister, but has been to two Everton matches at Hill Dickinson Stadium, where he was accommodated in the directors’ box despite holding a season ticket in the South Stand.
City confirmed on Friday that they had appealed against an independent commission’s verdict. They repeated their assessment that the verdict “contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe”.