Burnham should publish ‘everything’ on dealings with City, Badenoch says
Tory leader Mrs Badenoch said “transparency is essential” as she accused Mr Burnham of “not acting like the Prime Minister
Andy Burnham should publish “everything” related to his dealings with Manchester City, Kemi Badenoch has said, after the Prime Minister’s intervention in support of the football club’s owners raised eyebrows.
Tory leader Mrs Badenoch said “transparency is essential” as she accused Mr Burnham of “not acting like the Prime Minister” because of his comments.
The Labour leader and former Greater Manchester mayor last week said he would be “really concerned” if City’s Abu Dhabi owners sold the club in the wake of City being found to have breached the Premier League’s financial rules by an independent commission, crediting them with being “a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester”.
Mr Burnham also appeared to draw parallels between City’s guilty verdict and the handling of a disciplinary case against Everton, the side he supports.
He said he still held the view that the Toffees were “not fairly treated”, and told 5 News: “The Premier League proclaimed (Everton) guilty and I never accepted that and therefore it would be somewhat wrong of me to leap to judgment on another football club.”
After his remarks prompted criticism, a Downing Street spokesperson insisted the guilty verdict against City was “serious”.
Mrs Badenoch, in Tuesday interviews during the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, was asked whether Mr Burnham should publish details of meetings he held as Greater Manchester mayor with anyone from Manchester City.
She told GB News: “He should. I’m surprised he hasn’t done that already.”
Pressed on what information he should release, the Tory leader said: “Everything… Otherwise what’s being hidden?
“I think that the comments he made showed that he still thinks he is the mayor of Manchester. He is not acting like the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”
Mrs Badenoch also told the BBC: “I think transparency is essential.
“If he’s got nothing to hide, then he should open the box.
“He has made a big deal about what he did for Manchester, and if it turns out that the story he’s told is quite different, and actually it was Abu Dhabi that was doing these things, not him, then let’s hear the truth.
“Andy Burnham is someone who says that he wants to be straight with people.
“I was very surprised at the way he waded in on this subject.
“You would have heard me, you know, when I became leader, saying that government should not be getting involved in football and tinkering with it.
“Let the fans and the clubs run themselves properly.”
City were last week found guilty of charges related to breaches of financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18.
The Premier League said an independent commission found City arranged “sham” commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the period, which were part of a disguised funding scheme, whereby those companies were required to pay only a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees.
The commission found that the remainder was funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, which majority owned the club.
The club has appealed against the guilty verdict.