The chairman of Manchester City held secret talks in Downing Street days before the club was found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations, it has emerged.
Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who is also a senior member of the Abu Dhabi government, met Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds on 14 September to discuss defence and security ties between the two countries, as well as investment in Britain.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham was not in the building due to the death of his father Roy earlier that day, it is understood.
The i Paper has been told that Al Mubarak was in No10 in his official capacity, as chief executive of Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company, not as chairman of the embattled club, and that Manchester City was not discussed.
He and Reynolds held talks on the “full scope” of the relationship between the UK and United Arab Emirates, which included defence, security, intelligence sharing and trade, a British official said.
However the timing of the meeting, which was not publicly announced by Downing Street at the time, was just 15 days before an independent commission found City guilty of 114 charges relating to financial misconduct.
The sequence of events will fuel concerns over the Burnham government’s closeness to senior UAE figures.
Earlier this week No10 was forced to clarify remarks made by the Prime Minister, when he said he would be “really concerned” if City’s UAE owners decided to sell the club.
On Thursday Downing Street issued a statement insisting that “there can’t be any suggestion that anyone is above the rules”.
The meeting between Mubarak and Reynolds, first reported by Bloomberg, was revealed as UK officials and Emirati insiders insisted that the cheating scandal, and the government’s handling of it, would not derail relations between the two countries.
A British official described the UK-UAE relationship as strong, one that had lasted many decades and continued to be strong at all levels.
However there were concerns, according to Bloomberg, that the UK government had been warned by UAE officials the severity of City’s punishment could undermine their appetite for future grand-scale commitments in Britain. The investment partnership is expected to be up for discussion ahead of an Abu Dhabi summit to be held in London later this month, with British officials eager to secure more commitments.
A former minister who has worked with the Emirates told The i Paper: “The UK-UAE relationship is strategically important across investment, defence and security. I’m amazed at the slapdash way in which this ruling has been handled by the government.”
Louie French, shadow minister for sport, said: “Andy Burnham should never have got involved in this.
“His inappropriate intervention and subsequent rowing back have raised serious questions over conflicts of interests and the Prime Minister’s judgement.
“Why was the Government giving Manchester City’s leadership such privileged access at this sensitive time? What was discussed? Was Burnham’s team including Caroline Simpson or any other staff involved?
“These naive blunders by the Burnham Government look terrible and have made this extremely difficult situation for English football even worse.”
However Ahmed Khuzaie, a political consultant with expertise of the UAE, said while there may be some “diplomatic friction” between the two countries ahead of the summit, it was unlikely that the sporting scandal would do anything to endanger the close diplomatic and economic ties between the Gulf state and Britain, as they were “far too grounded in shared economic and strategic priorities”.
He said: “Institutional investors, sovereign funds, and state entities operate on long-term macro strategies rather than day-to-day headlines or localised sports governance decisions.
“While high profile assets like football clubs naturally draw immense public and media interest, they represent a small slice of a multi billion pound ecosystem that spans energy transition, defence, artificial intelligence, and major infrastructure.
“Naturally, global capital always values regulatory predictability and commercial clarity wherever it invests.
“But framing a sporting regulatory ruling as something that would derail broader bilateral relations overstates the case. The core relationship is far too grounded in shared economic and strategic priorities to be unsettled by a single sector’s verdict.”
Khuzaie added: “The financial and regulatory dispute surrounding Manchester City introduces a notable diplomatic friction point ahead of the upcoming Abu Dhabi summit in London.”
But he added that the issue would likely be compartmentalised to “protect the broader multi-billion pound Sovereign Investment Partnership”.
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