Controversy is mounting over the relationship between British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and the Abu Dhabi United Group (Adug), the group that owns the Manchester City football team, judged responsible for 114 violations of the financial rules of the Premier League and for having inflated revenues by over 900 million pounds (over one billion and 63 million euros) through fictitious commercial contracts.
Manchester City and relations with Prime Minister Andy Burnham
Adug had bought Manchester City in 2008 and started a close collaboration with the City of Manchester through investments in the city’s infrastructure. But Adug’s CEO, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is not just a private entrepreneur: he is a member of the royal family, vice president of the United Arab Emirates and deputy prime minister and president of the Presidential Court. He is also the brother of the current president of the Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In short, more than a relationship with an entrepreneur, that of the Municipality of Manchester was a relationship with the leaders of the Emirates.
For years, the relationship appeared as a model of success: Abu Dhabi invested, City grew and Manchester benefited from a regeneration project. Then, in 2018, came the investigation by the German newspaper Der Spiegel based on Football Leaks documents which suggested that some of City’s reported sponsorship was funded not by sponsors, but by Adug himself, through payments disguised as commercial revenue. This is how it worked: companies like Etihad were sponsors of the club, but they were fictitious companies used by the ownership group to inject more money into the club than was allowed under Financial Fair Play parameters.
The 42 million real estate operation: “But it was worth 33 million”
This is where Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to July 2026, comes in. The relationship between Adug and Manchester City Council included public land acquisitions, property investments, and major regeneration projects. These include the purchase, in 2017, of the former Central Retail Park in Ancoats for £42.35 million (€50 million), compared to a valuation of around £33 million.
The area fell within an area over which Adug had obtained a right of first refusal for real estate development. In the transaction documents, the Municipality planned to carry out the project together with the Emirati group, but the agreement never materialised. It was precisely on that land that the project was born Manchester Digital Campusintended to house approximately 8,800 Civil Service employees and initially chosen by Burnham for the new government headquarters No. 10 North.
Because the prime minister did not condemn the fraud
This is what makes the relationship between the prime minister and Adug cumbersome today, a group about which the British prime minister was unable to express negative words even in light of the fraud, defining it “a fundamental partner” in the construction of modern Manchester. Words that immediately aroused indignation among the opposition and forced Downing Street to issue a further note, to reiterate that no one can be above the rules.
The choice of the definitive location of No. 10 North also fueled controversy, so much so that, days after the scandal, Burnham decided to move it to First Street, officially because the Manchester Digital Campus will not be operational soon enough. But the timeliness of the decision seems to tell another story.
The opposition: “Burnham didn’t tell everything”
Under pressure, Burnham agreed on 11 October to make public details of his dealings with Manchester City, saying he had only had one major contact. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority confirmed only one official meeting with the club’s president, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, in October 2021. On 14 October, however, sources close to City accused the premier of not telling everything as other informal contacts, visits abroad with club representatives and invitations to the stadium emerged.
The 2021 meeting with Al Mubarak, for example, took place during the British government’s Global Investment Summit, as part of an investment mission. The relationship between Burnham and City therefore also had an economic and institutional dimension.
Trips to China and Japan and loans of £55 million
During the current prime minister’s term as mayor, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority granted three loans worth around £55 million to Emirati investors for real estate projects. The same metropolitan authority later confirmed that Burnham had been a guest of the club on several occasions and that his representatives had accompanied trade delegations to China and Japan.
The issue is therefore not just football but deeply political, so much so that David Kogan, president of the Independent Football Regulator, has threatened to resign in the event of interference in the management of the matter.
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