UAE may halt UK investments after Manchester City guilty verdict

Prefer the Guardian on GoogleThe United Arab Emirates has reportedly warned the government it could cancel big investments in the UK after Manchester City were found guilty by an independent commission.

Emirati officials said “the Premier League’s actions” would “have an influence on the bilateral state relationship”, according to Bloomberg.

Elsewhere, the Telegraph said the UAE is threatening to withdraw a multibillion-pound investment in a Silicon Valley-style Oxbridge tech hub.

The Premier League brought 115 charges against the club for breaches of financial rules between 2009 and 2018. Of those charges, 114 were upheld by an independent commission in September, which described City’s activities as a “sham” multiple times, adding that its witnesses used at the hearing were “dishonest.”

The Telegraph also reports that the City chair, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, met Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, in Downing Street two weeks before the Premier League announced its decision.

On Thursday, Downing Street said the guilty verdict against City was “serious”, after Andy Burnham was accused of making a “frankly extraordinary” intervention in support of the football club’s owners.

A No 10 spokesperson issued the statement after the prime minister said he would be “really concerned” to see the current owners sell up.

The Conservative shadow sport minister, Louie French, had accused the prime minister of “publicly backing the owners” amid an investigation into the club’s funding over recent years, describing his comments as “frankly extraordinary”.

Asked by the BBC earlier this week if he was worried about the current owners selling the club, Burnham said: “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.”

Asked also if his dealings with the club would stand up to scrutiny, he said: “I do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn’t just put into the Etihad [Stadium] and the campus around it but also into the city – but yes, of course.”

The Premier League said an independent commission found City arranged “sham” commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the period, which were part of a disguised funding scheme whereby those companies were required to pay only a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees.

The commission found that the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.

City lodged an appeal along with a short statement, saying the commission’s ruling contained “clear material errors of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe”.

Insisting on its innocence, the club reiterated it had filed “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence [that] exists in support of all of its positions” on Thursday evening.