Burnham Tells PMQs Man City Did Not Raise Premier League Charges With Him as Dinner Details Surface

Since a Premier League commission found Manchester City in breach of the league's financial rules 114 times between 2009 and 2018, and Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he would be "really concerned" if the club's Abu Dhabi owners sold up, the row has moved from the back pages into the Commons. Today, Oct. 14, it reached Prime Minister's Questions, the first since the verdict.

What Burnham told MPs

Conservative MP Jerome Mayhew asked whether anyone from City, or anyone on his team, had raised the club's charges with him. Burnham said the club had not. He said he had already released information about his contacts with the club.

The PMQs exchange followed fresh reports of dinners between Burnham and Al Mubarak at the Etihad Stadium. Burnham said those are covered by the statement the Greater Manchester Combined Authority published on Monday. He said he asked the authority to set out his key dealings with City's owners after the leader of the opposition and others called for it.

"I'm very happy for everything to be set out in full," he told MPs. "That statement was published on Monday and includes the issues in the news today."

Downing Street's position is that the dinners were not separate meetings. A No 10 spokesperson described them as hospitality received at matches, according to the BBC.

The dinners and the loan allegation

The Sun reported that Burnham had dinner with Al Mubarak at the Etihad Stadium twice while Manchester mayor, in August 2017 and April 2018. Those meetings are reportedly detailed in a register of interests that Burnham allegedly signed on December 7, 2020, which has since been removed from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority's website. He is said to have accepted almost £1,200 in freebies funded by City.

Reform UK's Robert Jenrick, the party's Treasury spokesperson, said of the revelations: "This whole saga stinks. Burnham appears to have lied about his extensive links to Manchester City's owners."

Shadow culture minister Louie French, the Conservative MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, alleged today that Burnham oversaw a £24.5m taxpayer loan as Greater Manchester mayor shortly after one of the Etihad dinners with Al Mubarak. French said Burnham had promised full transparency on his City dealings.

These are allegations from opposition politicians. No investigation has been announced, and no wrongdoing has been established. Burnham's PMQs answer pointed to the published statement rather than addressing the loan point.

Burnham has said publicly that his contact with the club was limited. On The Rest is Politics podcast, he said "none of it is recent" and that he "only had one significant meeting, actually, and that was in 2021." He left the mayoralty earlier this year.

The original comments

Speaking in Berlin last week, Burnham said: "I haven't downplayed the seriousness of the findings." He said the process must be "fully independent" and that football issues should be kept separate from wider investment in Manchester.

A No 10 spokesperson said "there can't be any suggestion that anyone is above the rules" and that if wrongdoing is established, "those responsible should face the appropriate consequences." The statement was later altered to say "whenever wrongdoing is established."

Senior officials at several rival Premier League clubs saw it differently, according to BBC Sport. They expressed concern about perceived political interference, and described the remarks as "absolutely bizarre" and "at best naive and at worst quite manipulative." Those officials were not named. Another club source told the BBC that the scrutiny on Burnham would make interference difficult.

Where the case stands

The commission found City guilty of all charges tied to serious financial-rule breaches over nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18. It also found City guilty of most charges arising from failure to cooperate with the league's investigation. The Premier League said the commission found City arranged "sham" commercial deals with sponsors as part of a disguised funding scheme in which the sponsors paid only part of the fees. The commission found the remainder was funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan's Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, which majority-owned the club.

City deny wrongdoing and have denied the charges since they were first brought in February 2023. The club has lodged what it calls a "comprehensive" appeal to Sir Gary Hickinbottom, chair of the judicial panel. It argues that "on multiple grounds, the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe."

The appeal has not been heard. A separate sanctions hearing is also still to come, and the Premier League says the disciplinary process is independent.

What comes next

City host Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League tonight, with former manager Pep Guardiola due to attend, according to the Mirror. The sporting question that matters more is the outcome of the appeal and the sanctions hearing. Burnham has said the process must "run its course." Whether the Conservatives keep pressing the loan allegation, and whether the Greater Manchester statement answers it, is the open political question.