Andy Burnham sat across from Khaldoon Al Mubarak at a UK government trade event in October 2021, in a formal meeting arranged by the Department for International Trade. The disclosure is the most concrete item in a statement released by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority on Monday, mapping out contact between the man now in Downing Street and the figurehead of Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi ownership.

Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester from May 2017 until June 2026 and is now UK prime minister. Al Mubarak has chaired City on behalf of its Abu Dhabi owners since the 2008 takeover.

A testimonial, a summit and two overseas trips

The 2021 Global Investment Summit meeting is the only formal sit-down the authority has disclosed. A second encounter, listed as informal, placed Burnham and Al Mubarak together in the stands at Vincent Kompany’s testimonial match in 2019.

The authority also confirmed that Manchester City FC staff accompanied the then-mayor on business delegations to China and Japan, alongside representatives from Manchester United and Lancashire Cricket Club on separate trips.

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“In his capacity as mayor, he was a guest of Manchester City FC at home matches on a small number of occasions,” the authority said, adding that the meetings had been “declared in the usual way”.

Released after Burnham’s BBC remarks

The paper trail was published after Burnham, as prime minister, told the BBC he would be “really concerned” if City’s Abu Dhabi owners sold the club, calling them “a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester”.

Those remarks landed days after an independent commission found City guilty on 29 September of all 100-plus charges of breaching Premier League financial regulations between 2009-10 and 2017-18. The commission ruled that the club had used sham sponsorship arrangements to inflate revenues by more than £900m across the affected period, with owner funding disguised as commercial income. The club lodged its appeal on 1 October, calling the ruling “unsafe”.

Burnham later said the Premier League process should remain “fully independent”. The statement released this week is the authority’s attempt to put the prime minister’s documented contact with City on the public record.

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Opposition says the paperwork says too little

Shadow sports minister Louie French, speaking for the Conservatives, said the disclosure fell short. The statement, he said, contained “precious little information about these meetings, what was discussed and what may have been agreed”.

The 2021 summit falls after the window covered by the commission’s findings but while the Premier League’s investigation into the club was already under way. Al Mubarak, as City’s chairman and chief executive of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth vehicle, is also one of the ownership figures whose role is now at issue.

City’s appeal against the commission’s verdict is pending before a Premier League appeal board.

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