Andy Burnham has said he will publish all details of his dealings with Manchester City from his time as Greater Manchester mayor, after his recent comments in support of the football club's owners drew criticism from opposition politicians.
The move follows calls from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch for full disclosure of his work with the club during his mayoral tenure. The Liberal Democrats also wrote asking him to release minutes of meetings and to declare any hospitality received from the club's owners.
Manchester City has been found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations between 2009 and 2018. The club denies wrongdoing and has appealed against the verdict.
Burnham said last month he would be "really concerned" if City's Abu Dhabi owners sold the club following the finding, describing them as "a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester". The remarks prompted Downing Street to clarify that the prime minister regarded the judgment as serious and that anyone found responsible for wrongdoing should face consequences.
Speaking in an interview with the Rest is Politics podcast, due to be released on Monday, Burnham said he would make public everything he had done in working with City's owners during his time as mayor.
"The football issues are different from the investment issues," he said. "But I see now people trying to conflate these things. I've been asked by the leader of the opposition to publish details of my meetings, which I'm happy to do."
He added: "I will quite clearly put out there everything that I have done working with them in my previous role as mayor of Greater Manchester. None of it is recent … in terms of the meetings I had. I only had one significant meeting … and that was in 2021. That is right and I will put that all out there."
Burnham maintained that the football and investment issues should be treated separately. "The football issues, they are serious and have to be dealt with, and the process is independent and it has to run its course. But I think everybody should separate the investment issues because they're not the same thing," he said.
The Premier League has said an independent commission found that Manchester City arranged "sham" commercial deals with a number of sponsors during the period in question, as part of a disguised funding scheme under which those companies paid only a portion of the agreed sponsorship fees.
According to the commission's findings, the remainder of the funding came from Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan's Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Ltd, the club's owner.
The shadow sports minister, Louie French, called on Burnham to also disclose any meetings or contact that may have taken place since becoming prime minister, and urged the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, to respond to outstanding questions on the matter.
"The prime minister must publish every contact between his ministers, officials and Manchester City since he walked into No 10," French said. "The prime minister must also explain why he inappropriately intervened in this case, and Lisa Nandy must answer the questions I have put to her in full."
Burnham's commitment to transparency comes as political attention intensifies on the relationship between senior figures in government and major sporting institutions, particularly following high-profile regulatory findings such as the one against Manchester City.
