By user-4235704036418671222 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 was found guilty of all charges related to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.
An independent commission found City had broken rules over a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018 by creating “sham” contracts with commercial partners to secretly funnel more than £830m into their football operations. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded that No 10 release all details of meetings between the prime minister and senior figures at the club, given Burnham’s previous role as mayor of Greater Manchester and questions about his relationship with City’s Abu Dhabi ownership.
Burnham told the Rest is Politics podcast that he was happy to publish the details, saying he would “quite clearly put out there everything” he had done while working with the club in his former role. “None of it is recent, actually, in terms of the meetings I had,” he said. “I only had one significant meeting, actually, and that was in 2021.”
The prime minister had 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 reportedly “astonished” by his stance, and sources told reporters they were “concerned” about political interference in the appeal process.
Sanctions have yet to be announced, and City have lodged an appeal against the verdict. The club returned to action for the first time since the ruling on Sunday, when they won 3-0 at Liverpool.
Burnham defends comments on Man City
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 means of growing Manchester’s economy, a strategy the city’s leaders had pursued before he became the inaugural elected mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
“I don’t think I misspoke,” Burnham said of his earlier remarks about the club’s owners. He explained that his mind “hadn’t been on all of the issues” because he was focused on the Labour Party conference and related interviews. He also rejected the link that questioners had drawn between the two subjects. “The football issues are different from the investment issues,” he said. “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 disciplinary process is independent of the Premier League. The 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 stated 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.