Records cited by the BBC show that Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak hosted Andy Burnham, now British Prime Minister, at two hospitality dinners in 2017 and 2018, when he was mayor of Greater Manchester.
The dinners, held at the Etihad Stadium in August 2017 and April 2018, have drawn renewed attention as pressure mounts on Burnham to disclose details of his dealings with the club.
The events were not specifically mentioned in a statement issued Monday by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), which detailed Burnham’s interactions with the club during his mayoral tenure.
An earlier register showed that Burnham attended an August 2017 dinner with Al Mubarak and then-Manchester City Council leader Richard Leese during an Everton match. The hospitality was valued at £300.
A second entry recorded a dinner with the club chairman during the Manchester City-Manchester United derby in April 2018, worth about £699.
Burnham had also declared both dinners and two tickets, valued at £150, for Ed Sheeran’s concert at the stadium in May 2018.
The register has since disappeared from the GMCA website. The BBC reported that the authority’s policy was to publish declarations only from the current mayoral term.
The broadcaster has asked the GMCA to explain the policy, noting that some records dating to 2022 remain online despite the current mayoral term beginning in 2024.
The disclosures come amid growing scrutiny of Burnham’s links to Manchester City after an independent commission found the club had breached Premier League financial regulations.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, Burnham was asked whether club officials had discussed the charges against them with him.
“They did not raise those issues with me,” he told MPs.
Burnham said he was prepared to disclose details of his dealings with the club and had requested a GMCA statement outlining his key interactions with its owners.
“It is why I asked the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), in response to a call from the leader of the Opposition and others, to set out a full statement of my key dealings with the owners of Manchester City Football Club,” he said.
“That statement was published on Monday, and it includes the issues in the news today.”
