Sport meets politics! City chairman held a secret Downing Street meeting days before the verdict
The biggest financial scandal in Premier League history has spilled far beyond the touchline and straight into Westminster. A fresh Bloomberg bombshell reveals that Manchester City's chairman was meeting a senior UK government minister in private while the club's fate was already sealed.
Details: According to Bloomberg, Khaldoon Al Mubarak met UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in Downing Street on 14 September, in his capacity as CEO of Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. The pair discussed current and future UAE investment in Britain, with the conversation covering defence, security, intelligence and trade. Eleven days later, on 25 September, The Athletic reported that City had been found guilty of breaking Premier League rules, and on 29 September the Premier League confirmed the verdict: the club artificially boosted its balance sheet by more than £900 million.
The timing of the meeting will raise thorny questions about the UK government's handling of the case. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has already faced criticism, including from his own ministers, after publicly suggesting City's Abu Dhabi owners should not be disqualified from running the club because of the investment they bring to Britain, calling them “huge partners” in the building of modern Manchester. Burnham spoke to UAE president Mohammed bin Zayed within a week of taking office in July. Earlier, Bloomberg also reported that Emirati officials warned London that the severity of the ruling could undermine their appetite for future grand scale commitments in Britain. The UAE, after all, has form in such matters: leaked documents from 2015 showed Abu Dhabi threatening to block billion pound arms deals over the Muslim Brotherhood row. In this saga, football and geopolitics are no longer distinguishable: the man who runs Manchester City is the same man who heads a fund managing hundreds of billions of dollars, serves as a UAE special envoy and sits at the heart of the Emirati state.
It's worth noting that the timeline is ruthless: the 14 September meeting came while the independent commission's decision was already drafted, sanctions are still to be decided at a further hearing, and City have until Friday, October 2, the day of the meeting revelation, to formally lodge their appeal.
Reminder: Official! Premier League finds Man City guilty on all charges
Miguel Solomons
Dailysports's expert
