{"id":789772,"date":"2026-10-02T15:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/789772\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T15:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:44:09","slug":"andy-burnham-urged-by-lib-dems-to-reveal-all-meetings-with-owners-of-manchester-city-manchester-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/789772\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham urged by Lib Dems to reveal all meetings with owners of Manchester City | Manchester City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham is facing calls from the Liberal Democrats<\/a> to publish details of all his meetings with Manchester City\u2019s owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), and declare all hospitality he has accepted at the Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n

The prime minister was widely criticised this week for saying he would be \u201creally concerned\u201d<\/a> if ADUG were forced to sell City after being found guilty<\/a> of breaching the Premier League\u2019s financial regulations, which led to Downing Street issuing two clarifications<\/a> of his position on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Burnham also praised ADUG\u2019s investment in Manchester, having had close relations with the company, through which Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008, during nine years as the mayor of Greater Manchester which ended when he returned to parliament<\/a> this summer.<\/p>\n

In a strongly-worded letter to Burnham the Lib Dems\u2019 spokesperson for culture, media and sport, Anna Sabine, criticised his apparent defence of City as \u201cextraordinary\u201d and invoked Gianni Infantino\u2019s aborted World Cup sell-off scheme<\/a> in what she described as a difficult year for football.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you will know, an independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of 114 charges of breaching financial rules over a timeframe of nearly a decade, including the use of \u2018sham contracts\u2019 and schemes to disguise<\/a> more than \u00a3830m of funding,\u201d Sabine writes in a letter seen by the Guardian.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite this, your response was to thank the club\u2019s owners for their work and describe the findings as \u2018contested\u2019 and that it was \u2018wrong to jump to a conclusion\u2019. It is extraordinary that a prime minister would use his position to call into question the findings of the independent investigation, and risk undermining trust in the Premier League\u2019s processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a difficult year for football\u2019s reputation. Fifa\u2019s conduct around the World Cup has already raised serious questions about integrity in the game we love. At a moment like this, fans expect their prime minister to stand up for the rules in place, not to appear to side with a club found guilty of breaking them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabine also told the Guardian that Burnham\u2019s ties to ADUG should be scrutinised and is planning to write to Downing Street and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to demand details of their meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball fans up and down the country deserve to know that the rules apply to everyone, however rich and powerful they are,\u201d Sabine said. \u201cWhen the prime minister leaps to the defence of a club\u2019s owners within hours of a verdict, people are entitled to ask what their relationship is.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndy 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 \u2013 and that includes any hospitality freebies received.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Burnham, an Everton fan, has been pictured attending City games at the Etihad Stadium in hospitality areas.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A Downing Street spokesperson said Burnham had not met City\u2019s owners since becoming prime minister in July and that his quarterly list of engagements would be published before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

City\u2019s chair, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, visited Downing Street last month for a meeting with the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, but Burnham did not attend.<\/p>\n

Burnham has not been to a City game since he became prime minister but has attended two Everton matches at Hill Dickinson Stadium, where he was accommodated in the directors\u2019 box despite having a season ticket in the South Stand.<\/p>\n

City confirmed on Friday that they had appealed<\/a> against an independent commission\u2019s verdict. They repeated their assessment that the verdict \u201ccontains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham is facing calls from the Liberal Democrats to publish details of all his meetings with Manchester…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-789772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}