Burnham orders 'manual trawl' of records as deleted Man City dinner logs fuel scrutiny

Andy Burnham has called for a ‘manual trawl’ of official records relating to his contact with Manchester City, after it emerged that documentation of two dinners with club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak had been deleted from Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) files.

The Prime Minister, who served as Mayor of Greater Manchester before entering Downing Street, declared hospitality from City totalling £1,000 during his tenure. However, when the GMCA released a summary of his contact with the club this week, two dinners with Al Mubarak were absent. The authority had referenced an informal meeting in the stands in 2019 and a formal meeting at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit in 2021, but the dinners went unspecified.

Burnham addressed the gap directly, saying: “It was included in the statement, it referenced meetings and hospitality at Manchester City when I was there as a guest. It did mention it, it was not prepared by me, it was prepared by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, so it was comprehensive. I’ve asked them to do a more manual trawl because I want everything possible to be out there. There is no question about that full transparency.”

The scrutiny arrives at a particularly sensitive moment for Manchester City, who are appealing an independent commission’s finding that they breached Premier League financial regulations on more than 100 counts. The range of potential sanctions — from points deductions to relegation from the top flight and possibly the EFL — has placed the club’s future in significant uncertainty.

The case has also drawn the attention of Independent Football Regulator David Kogan, who issued a pointed warning to the government against any form of political interference in the process. Kogan stated: “Our independence is absolute and my independence personally is absolute,” adding that considerations beyond the regulation of football clubs would play no part in any outcome his body determines. He made clear that he would resign should the government attempt to intervene.

Kogan also noted that a clause in the original Conservative-era legislation that required the regulator to consider British trade relationships had been deliberately removed before the bill passed through Parliament, underlining that the regulator’s mandate is strictly confined to football governance.

The convergence of a high-profile political figure, a landmark disciplinary case, and questions over deleted records has broadened the Manchester City saga well beyond the football pitch, with pressure now mounting on both the GMCA to produce a complete account of its dealings and on Burnham to demonstrate the transparency he has publicly pledged.