Manchester City stadium
Manchester City stadium
March 26 – The scale of Abu Dhabi’s investment in Manchester is coming under renewed scrutiny after UAE officials warned that Manchester City’s guilty verdict could have consequences well beyond football.
The warning sits against the backdrop of a Guardian investigation that has found UAE-linked businesses have increased their landholdings across Greater Manchester by 39% over the past decade, from 73 hectares in 2016 to 101 hectares this year.
The number of registered titles has risen from 51 to 168, with companies linked to City owner Sheikh Mansour holding at least 34 of them, including the Etihad Stadium. His interests account for roughly two-thirds of the Emirati-owned land identified.
The investigation into the property holdings comes as the Premier League case starts to spill into politics.
City were found guilty by an independent commission of 114 of 115 charges relating to financial-rule breaches between 2009 and 2018, including the use of sham sponsorship arrangements to disguise owner funding. The club are appealing and continue to publicly reject the findings.
In the days after the ruling, UAE officials had warned the UK government that “the Premier League’s actions” would influence the wider bilateral relationship between the countries. Separate reporting said billions of pounds of planned Emirati investment in Britain could be reconsidered.
Prime minister Andy Burnham commented that he would be “really concerned” if City’s Abu Dhabi owners were forced to leave, describing them as a major partner in the development of modern Manchester.
That dependence stretches beyond the club.
Much of Mansour’s wider footprint has been built through Manchester Life, the development partnership formed between Manchester City Council and Abu Dhabi interests in 2014.
The original plan was pitched as a £1 billion regeneration programme capable of delivering more than 6,000 homes. Manchester Life itself has delivered 2,039, while the wider total including other developers stands at 4,878.
Only 8% of those homes are classified as affordable or social housing, and none were delivered directly by Manchester Life.
The financial relationship has also attracted attention.
In 2017, three property companies ultimately controlled by Mansour received £55 million in loans through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s housing investment fund. The loans were repaid in full, but councillors are examining the approval process and the terms under which the money was advanced.
A separate 2015 agreement gave Abu Dhabi interests preferential access to certain development opportunities near Manchester city centre, while a council review published earlier this year acknowledged weaknesses in documentation, monitoring and oversight despite recognising the economic benefits of the regeneration programme.
None of those property arrangements form part of the Premier League case, and there is no suggestion that the land deals themselves breached football regulations.
But the timing makes this more problematic. City’s appeal could yet overturn or reduce the force of the commission’s findings. If they stand, the Independent Football Regulator has already confirmed it has the power to force an owner to sell where it believes a club has been run improperly.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at harry.ewing@insideworldfootball.com