No one better understands the precarious tightrope Abu Dhabi walks when it tries to balance its relationships with western Europe while weighing the complex geopolitics of the Gulf region than Manchester City\u2019s chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak. He was eight when his father, ambassador Khalifa Ahmed Abdel Aziz al-Mubarak, left the family Paris apartment for work on 9 February 1984 and was assassinated on the street in cold blood by a Palestinian terrorist.<\/p>\n
And no one outside the emirate\u2019s royal family could be more wrapped up in the project of making and maintaining Abu Dhabi as a significant and secure world power and the dominant member of the United Arab Emirates, a nation state still only 55 years old. His paternal grandfather, Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz al-Mubarak, was chair of Abu Dhabi\u2019s Sharia judicial department and senior adviser to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the founding president of the UAE. As such, Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz was the James Madison of the UAE (the founding father, not the Spurs player) in that he crafted the Islamic legal framework of the new nation in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Khaldoon\u2019s father was assassinated by a group led by Abu Nidal which, according to the CIA, was \u201cthe most dangerous and effective of all terrorist groups [and] the best organized of the radical Palestinian terrorist groups\u201d before the emergence of Hamas. The murder was justified in a phone call saying that the UAE \u201chad expelled Palestinian and Arab residents and was linked with American imperialism\u201d. In essence, they were accused of being too soft on the west, not radical enough for Palestinians.<\/p>\n
Both al-Mubarak\u2019s grandfather and father have streets named after them in Abu Dhabi, with his father honoured as a martyr of the state. It is fair to say the City chair has honoured the family tradition as chief adviser to the UAE president and Abu Dhabi ruler, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan, for whom he first worked after graduating from Tufts University in Massachusetts. Given his father\u2019s martyrdom, the royal family is said to have looked out for al-Mubarak as a quasi-adopted son. According to a source in the Financial Times, al-Mubarak is \u201cdiplomatically in charge of the UK file as well as the China file \u2026 and he\u2019s the main liaison with the US administration\u201d and has diplomatic immunity in the UK. That said, he appears to have made a rare misstep with his belligerent tone on Manchester City<\/p>\n
According to Manchester City\u2019s lawyer Simon Cliff, it was al-Mubarak who dictated the aggressive confrontational stance City have taken with football authorities. As far back as 2014, when City were fighting their first Uefa charge, Cliff wrote, according to leaked documents first published by Der Spiegel: \u201cKhaldoon says he would rather spend \u00a330m on the 50 best lawyers in the world and sue them [Uefa] for the next ten years than agree a financial penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khaldoon al-Mubarak with Pep Guardiola after Manchester City\u2019s Premier League title win in 2021-22. Photograph: Martin Rickett\/PA<\/p>\n
He backed down on that occasion, along with the co-accused Paris Saint-Germain, both clubs agreeing a small fine and minor transfer restrictions with Uefa. It is extraordinary that City kept fighting thereafter, whereas the Qatar-owned PSG accepted their punishment, cozied up to Uefa \u2013 with the club\u2019s president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, becoming chair of the European Club Association (now European Football Clubs) and chief opponent of the breakaway Super League \u2013 and built the most exciting and successful team in Europe, bringing admiration for the Qatari brand among observers willing to ignore human rights abuses. Al-Mubarak, in fighting to the end with City, appears to have broken an ambassador\u2019s cardinal law: don\u2019t embarrass your boss. Should City lose their appeal against an independent commission\u2019s finding that they were guilty of multiple breaches of financial rules<\/a>, al-Mubarak may be instructed to organise the sale of the club.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure that\u2019s the case with Man City,\u201d says Christopher Davidson, author of Abu Dhabi, Oil and Beyond. \u201cMore than that, I\u2019ve been told by some [in Abu Dhabi] that it will be the case. I can\u2019t see any reason why they would stick around and try to rebuild the reputation after this. It\u2019s embarrassing the royal family now. I can\u2019t think of any example where things have gone wrong [for Abu Dhabi] and they\u2019ve just kept plugging money into it. I think they\u2019ll play out the appeal \u2013 nothing to lose with that \u2013 but once that\u2019s done, it\u2019s all about how to get out before the owners are declared unfit, a far worse outcome. There are very clever people involved in Abu Dhabi who I\u2019m led to believe will very strongly counsel this needs to be a quiet retreat because the longer they stay in the game, the more damaging it is and it will unravel any kind of soft power Abu Dhabi managed to gain.\u201d<\/p>\n In June al-Mubarak said \u201cthese sorts of jewels, you don\u2019t sell\u201d and that there was \u201conly intention to keep growing this\u201d. As for the wider threat to UK-Abu Dhabi relations<\/a>, Davidson believes it is overstated. \u201cSome of the reporting perhaps has portrayed Abu Dhabi as a bit monolithic. There are entire big and growing sections of Abu Dhabi state economy that are outside al-Mubarak\u2019s remit. Some of Abu Dhabi\u2019s biggest investments in the UK in recent years have been in renewable energy and the windfarms of Scotland from Masdar energy, which is chaired by Sultan al-Jaber, who\u2019s another key lieutenant of the ruler.\u201d<\/p>\n Davidson also cites the International Holding Company (IHC), which has huge biotech, shipping, healthcare and retail investments in the UK, including the Ivy restaurants, and is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi and brother of the UAE president and Sheikh Mansour. \u201cIt\u2019s inconceivable that these investments would be withdrawn,\u201d says Davidson.<\/p>\n Khaldoon al-Mubarak (left) alongside City owner Sheikh Mansour at the then City of Manchester Stadium in August 2010. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n