Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he will publish details of his meetings with senior figures at Manchester City, following criticism of his comments after the club were found guilty of all charges related to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.
An independent commission found that City had broken the rules over a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018, creating “sham” contracts with commercial partners to secretly funnel more than £830m into their football operations. Sanctions have yet to be announced, and City have lodged an appeal against the verdict.
Burnham’s previous role as mayor of Greater Manchester has prompted questions about his relationship with City’s Abu Dhabi ownership. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded that Downing Street release all details of meetings between the prime minister and senior figures at the club.
“I’ve been asked by the leader of the opposition to publish details of my meetings, which I’m happy to do and I’m going to,” Burnham said on the Rest is Politics podcast.
“I will quite clearly put out there everything that I have done working with them in my previous role as Mayor of Greater Manchester.
“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.”
Burnham defends his comments
Burnham initially said he would be “really concerned” if City’s owners decided to sell up following the guilty verdict. He later denied that his reaction had “downplayed the seriousness of the findings”.
Some Premier League clubs were so “astonished” by his stance that sources said they were “concerned” about political interference in the appeal process.
Burnham served as mayor of Manchester from 2017 until earlier this year, a period that coincided with a sustained spell of success for City. As mayor, he championed investment from the Gulf as a way of growing Manchester’s economy, a strategy first pursued by the city’s leaders before he became the inaugural elected mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
“I don’t think I misspoke,” Burnham said of his past comments on City’s owners.
“What I would say is my mind hadn’t been on all of the issues. My mind had been on Labour Party conference and I was doing interviews in relation to it.
“And also, I didn’t link those two things. You know, the questions linked those two things. What I would say is they’re very separate.
“The football issues are different from the investment issues. People will try and conflate those two things, but they shouldn’t, in my view.
“The football issues, the findings of the independent commission are serious, as I said in the interview.”
The verdict and appeal
The independent commission held a 42-day hearing in 2024, which led to the verdict announced last month. City were found guilty of all charges except one relating to non-cooperation with the Premier League investigation.
The commission’s report said that “a number of important club witnesses gave false evidence in key respects and that some knowingly gave untrue and dishonest evidence”. A separate independent appeal board will hear City’s appeal, and the club continues to deny any wrongdoing.
City returned to action for the first time since the verdict on Sunday, when they won 3-0 at Liverpool.