Andy Burnham attended two hospitality dinners with Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak while he was mayor of Greater Manchester, records seen by the BBC show.
The dinners took place at home matches in 2017 and 2018 but were not specifically mentioned in a statement issued on Monday by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) detailing Burnham’s dealings with the club.
Burnham, who was mayor until June, has faced pressure to explain his previous discussions with Manchester City since an independent commission found the club had “systematically” breached Premier League rules. Manchester City denies wrongdoing and is appealing against the verdict.
The controversy intensified last month when Burnham said he would be “really concerned” if the club’s owners sold it.
The GMCA said Burnham had a formal meeting with Al Mubarak in October 2021 at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit, arranged by the Department for International Trade. It also said he met the chairman informally in the stands at a 2019 testimonial match for former Manchester City player Vincent Kompany.
The authority added that Burnham had been “a guest of Manchester City at home matches on a small number of occasions” in his role as mayor.
However, it did not explain that the occasions included two dinners with Al Mubarak at separate matches.
A previous GMCA register recorded a “dinner with [then-Manchester City Council leader] Richard Leese and Chair of Man City” during an Everton match at the Etihad Stadium in August 2017. The hospitality was valued at £300.
A second entry referred to a “dinner with the Chairman at the Man City/Man Utd derby at the Etihad” in April 2018, with an approximate value of £699.
Burnham had also declared a £150 pair of tickets to see Ed Sheeran perform at the stadium in May 2018.
The register has since been removed from the GMCA website, as first reported by The Sun. The BBC understands the authority’s policy is to publish declarations only from the current mayoral term, although entries on its website date back to 2022 despite that term beginning in 2024. The BBC has asked the GMCA for further details.
Downing Street said the dinners were declared hospitality at home matches rather than separate meetings with the club chairman.
Shadow sports minister Louie French said: “Andy Burnham promised the country and House of Commons full transparency on his dealings with Manchester City.
“This was essential after his inappropriate intervention into football.”
Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick said “this saga stinks” and accused Burnham of apparently “concealing his extensive links to Man City’s owners”.
Burnham told the Rest Is Politics podcast he was “happy” to publish everything he had done with the club as mayor, adding: “None of it is recent, actually, in terms of the meetings I had. I only had one significant meeting, actually, and that was in 2021.”
At Prime Minister’s Questions, he said club officials had not raised the charges with him or his team: “They did not raise those issues with me.”
Manchester City was found to have breached financial rules between 2009 and 2018 by creating “sham” contracts that secretly channelled more than £830m into its football operations. Sanctions have not been announced.
Earlier this month, Sir Richard Leese defended a deal between Manchester City Council and Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), under which land was leased at “below comparable rates”, according to a University of Sheffield report.
