Burnham had two hospitality dinners with Man City chairman, deleted records show
The prime minister has been under growing pressure since the club was found guilty of Premier League rule breaches.
Key points
- Andy Burnham had two hospitality dinners with Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak in 2017 and 2018.
- The dinners were not mentioned in Monday's GMCA statement about Burnham's meetings with the club.
- The register that listed the dinners has been deleted from the GMCA website.
Andy Burnham had two hospitality dinners with Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak while serving as mayor of Greater Manchester, it has emerged. The meals took place at matches in 2017 and 2018, but were not included in a Monday statement by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority about Burnham's meetings with the club.
Burnham, now prime minister, has faced pressure to clarify his past discussions with Manchester City since the club was found guilty of systematically breaking Premier League rules. He has said he would appeal the verdict.
What the statement said
The GMCA statement said Burnham had a formal meeting with Al Mubarak in October 2021 at the UK Government's Global Investment Summit, arranged by the Department for International Trade. It also said he met the club chairman informally in the stands at a 2019 testimonial for former player Vincent Kompany, and that as mayor he was a guest of Manchester City at home matches on a small number of occasions.
The statement did not specify that this referred to the two hospitality dinners with the chairman. A register seen by the BBC showed a dinner with then-Manchester City Council leader Richard Leese and the chairman at an Everton match in August 2017, valued at £300, and another at the Manchester derby in April 2018, valued at about £699.
They did not raise those issues with me.
— Andy Burnham
Deleted register and reaction
Burnham had previously declared those dinners, along with £150 tickets to an Ed Sheeran concert at the stadium in May 2018. The register has since been deleted from the GMCA website, as first reported by The Sun. The BBC understands it is the authority's policy to only publish entries from the current mayoral term.
Downing Street defended the dinners, saying they were hospitality received at home games that had been declared, not separate meetings with the chairman. Political pressure continues to mount, with Conservative shadow sports minister Louie French saying Burnham promised full transparency, and Reform UK's Robert Jenrick saying the saga stinks.
