The rows circulating around Manchester City are huge, and they are only going to get bigger. The Premier League has concluded that City "systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade". This, clearly, matters for the club, but that is just the start of it.
It matters for Manchester, it matters for the Premier League and so, crucially, it matters for the UK's image around the world – because England's top flight is a colossal global brand. In other words, this matters whether you like football or not. Added to all of this, Andy Burnham pitches himself as Mr Manchester and is a big football fan.
The man who was the mayor of Greater Manchester a matter of months ago is now the prime minister, and so finds himself caught up in it all at a local level, a national level and a diplomatic level. Diplomatic, because rows will rage over the extent to which City's ownership is separate from the Abu Dhabi state. And the state is a big UK ally.
All of this is why I thought it was in the public interest to put a series of questions to Burnham about it when I spoke to him on Wednesday as the Labour Party conference concluded in Liverpool. His comments, in his interview with me, followed by no fewer than two attempts to backtrack 24 hours later, amount to perhaps his biggest self inflicted tangle since he arrived in Downing Street in July. He will have expected to be asked about Manchester City, but he didn't expect sustained scrutiny about it.
One particular exchange prompted a lot of interest. I asked if he was worried that Manchester City's owners from the United Arab Emirates might sell up. "Well, I would be really concerned to lose them.
They've been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester. Obviously, the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is. "I can't intervene more in the process.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
