Andy Burnham warns Manchester City owner exit would be 'really concerning' for the city

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has warned that losing Manchester City’s owners would be deeply damaging for the city, speaking publicly for the first time about the fallout from the club’s Premier League financial misconduct case.

“I would be really concerned to lose them,” Burnham told the BBC. “They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester — obviously, the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is.”

His comments come after Manchester City and the Premier League released statements confirming the club had been found guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules across a nine-season period. The league had charged City in February 2023 with alleged violations of its financial regulations dating back to the 2009-10 season, describing certain commercial arrangements as ‘sham’ deals allegedly used to conceal the source of funding through the 2017-18 campaign.

Despite his concerns, Burnham was careful to distance himself from the legal process itself, stressing that it would be inappropriate for him to intervene directly.

“I am not getting directly involved in the process. I’ve not spoken to anybody directly about that,” he said. “I have to keep my distance from it. It would be wrong for me to do anything else. It’s an independent legal process that has to play its course through.”

Burnham acknowledged the scale of what is at stake beyond the football club itself. “There’s a lot at stake. Let’s be honest about that, for the football club, for City supporters, for the city of Manchester.”

The case represents one of the most significant disciplinary proceedings in English football history, with the charges spanning nearly a decade of alleged financial misconduct. The club’s transformation under its current ownership into a dominant force in European football has been closely tied to Manchester’s own rise as an international city, a dimension Burnham’s remarks bring sharply into focus as the consequences of the verdict begin to unfold.