๐ฌ๐ง UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, said on Friday he would be "really concerned" to lose Manchester City's Abu Dhabi owners, after an independent commission found the club guilty of breaking Premier League financial rules for nearly a decade.
Burnham described the Emirati owners as "a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester." Downing Street later clarified that "nobody was above the rules."
The commission found City used sham contracts to inflate its commercial revenue by more than ยฃ800 million across nine seasons. The club is appealing the ruling. It is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, vice president of the UAE, which for the past three years has been sponsoring genocide in Sudan.
The Telegraph reported this weekend that UAE officials have warned Burnham's government that harsh penalties could jeopardize billions in Emirati investment in Britain, and damage relations. Abu Dhabi is reportedly reconsidering private funding for the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, a major government infrastructure project.
๐ฅ Joshi Herrmann (@joshi) from the Manchester Mill speaks with LBC about the role Emirati funding played in Manchesterโs revival.