Records of two dinners Burnham says he attended with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak in 2017 and 2018 were deleted, and the GMCA's Monday statement on 12 October 2026 did not specify them.
An independent panel found the club secretly boosted its income by £900m between 2009 and 2018, and the club denies the allegations and says it will appeal.
Reports say a Manchester City representative was invited to join a government-backed trade mission to India after the ruling, with business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and mayor Bev Craig also on the trip.
As mayor, Burnham declared dinners from the club valued at a combined £1,000 for hospitality, and he is now asking the GMCA for a manual search of all related records.
Andy Burnham, who is prime minister, said on Thursday, 15 October 2026, that he had asked the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to run a more hands-on search of everything linked to his earlier contact with Manchester City. He told broadcasters he wanted all possible material made public. The request follows questions about his dealings with the club while he was mayor of Greater Manchester for almost a decade, a post he held until June 2026.
“I've asked them to do a more manual trawl of everything, as I want everything possible to be out there.”
The authority's statement, issued on Monday, 12 October 2026, mentioned an informal meeting with club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak in the stands at a 2019 match and a formal meeting at the UK Government's Global Investment Summit in October 2021. It did not specify two dinners Burnham says he attended with Al Mubarak at matches at the Etihad in 2017 and 2018. Confusion grew when it emerged that records of those two dinners had been deleted, and Burnham insisted the occasions were included in the statement. As mayor, he had declared the dinners from the club, valued at a combined £1,000 for hospitality.
The club has been found guilty of systematically breaking Premier League rules, and an independent panel's 40-page verdict sits at the centre of the case. The panel concluded that the club secretly boosted its income by £900m between 2009 and 2018. The club denies the allegations and says it will appeal the findings.
The club was bought by Abu Dhabi United Group, a private equity firm owned by the vice president of the Gulf state, and its rise in the league followed that purchase. Financial fair play rules introduced by the Premier League in 2013 were designed to stop wealthy state-backed owners from buying immediate dominance. According to the panel's findings, the club's income figures did not reflect that intent.
Reports say a Manchester City representative was invited to take part in a government-backed trade mission to India, a trip that followed the ruling on more than 100 breaches of league finance rules. Kiran Stacey, who travelled on that trade trip with business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and new Greater Manchester mayor Bev Craig, discovered that a club representative was also present. Craig succeeded Burnham as Greater Manchester mayor. The presence of the club's representative on an official government trip has added to pressure on ministers.
Burnham's political opponents have accused him of seeking to cover up the meetings with the club, and commentators have described the matter as a serious misjudgment over his remarks about his contact with the club's owners. The Telegraph reports that Burnham has vowed to fight the club's corner in its battle with the Premier League. The prime minister has now been drawn into a dispute that reaches well beyond football, given the club's foreign state backing. The club's appeal against the panel's findings is the next step in the case.
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The prime minister says the Greater Manchester Combined Authority is searching everything linked to his earlier contact with the club, after records of two dinners with its chairman were found deleted.
AI text based on reports by The Guardian, The Telegraph, PÚBLICO and other publishers. Changed .