Bev Craig talks Man City, Abu Dhabi, and Andy Burnham

Bev Craig has said the intense coverage of Manchester’s relationship with Abu Dhabi has been used to make ‘cheap shots’ against Prime Minister Andy Burnham and ‘bash’ the city.

The mayor of Greater Manchester hit out at national media who she said ‘haven’t been following what’s been going on’ in Manchester over the last two decades.

Her comments were made following a Manchester Evening News and Local Democracy Reporting Service investigation into the truth behind the deal with Abu Dhabi United Group which changed the city forever.

The mayor said: “I think it has been curious, but not unexpected, that suddenly people have shown interest in Manchester’s story over the last two decades.

“I think it’s become increasingly clear that discussions and debates that have been had over the last 15 years have appeared new and fresh to national media, which shows that they haven’t been following what’s been going on in Manchester and Manchester’s growth story for two decades.

“Much of what we’re talking about are things that many of us have previously talked about on the record, that have received an awful lot of scrutiny, and you can’t get away from the fact that people that previously had no interest in Manchester or Greater Manchester suddenly have a lot of interest in Manchester and Greater Manchester.

“It’s pretty evident why, on the back of Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister.

“I would say that for me, I’ve always been really clear that in terms of football, if Manchester City are found guilty, if they lose their appeal against the Premier League, then they should face sanctions.

“I think what’s become intertwined with that has been an opportunity to bash a city, rather than looking just at a football club. What was a football story should have stayed a football story, in my view.”

Coverage of Manchester’s dealings with Abu Dhabi ramped up after Man City were handed a guilty verdict over charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.

The club has lodged an appeal against the verdict.

Asked why there has been so much coverage of the city’s relationship with Abu Dhabi now, Ms Craig said: “Because Andy Burnham is the Prime Minister.

“My view is that there is an opportunity to take cheap shots at a Prime Minister, with the city featuring as collateral damage.

“But as I would say, that isn’t on the football story. On the football story, this has been the instigator as to why we’re talking about Man City. So I completely accept that, and my view is that if a football club’s done something wrong, they should be punished for it.”

A recent national story focused on Bev Craig bringing an unnamed Man City ‘representative’ to India on a government trade visit last week.

Greater Manchester’s delegation of 60 people was made up of senior leaders from businesses, universities, sports clubs and cultural institutions, including Lancashire Cricket Club.

The mayor said the funded element of the trip was for businesses looking to export into Indian markets, but that Man City was not part of that.

Ms Craig said: “I don’t want to draw undue attention to members of the delegation, but I think for the avoidance of doubt, the one person that came from Manchester City is a young man in his 20s who works on ticketing and stadiums and has no strategic role within the club.”

Asked why the club’s presence on the trip was not mentioned in a Greater Manchester Combined Authority press release, the mayor added: “In fairness, you wouldn’t ordinarily mention somebody so junior in level from any of that.

“But what I would say is that if you want to know why we’ve grown our city, why we’ve become world-popular, why we’re hosting the G20, why we secured the Brits, why Chanel approached us, why the NBA is skipping London to come to Manchester, it’s because we work our global brand.

“When we go to some markets, they’re excited about Manchester United, when we go to other markets, they’re excited about Manchester City, and when we go to some markets, Lancashire Cricket is what sells.

“We will always use the things that are good about our place in terms of global brand, so it is entirely normal that we would take our sports clubs, our music venues, our assets as part of our delegation.

“They pay for themselves, they come along, and they talk up Manchester. That is just a normal way of doing business across the world.”

If Man City’s appeal over Premier League financial charges fails, reports have speculated that the club could be facing a major points deduction which could mean relegation to the Championship.

Asked if there would need to be some sort of support for the club if that plays out, the mayor said: “I think if that does happen, we need to look at how the human beings in the system are supported.

“But the reality is a mayor has got many, many powers, football regulation and football enforcement of the rules go well beyond my pay grade, and I’ve always got to be slightly careful as a Man United fan here as well, to not get drawn into it.

“The reality is there might be debates about the Premier League, there might be discussions about lots of other clubs, but if a club is found guilty, that is for the regulators of football and for the Premier League to decide that.

“I don’t think there should be any, and indeed I haven’t seen any evidence, of any political interference into that process, and I think it’s the job for politicians to let independent processes play out.”

Before being elected as mayor of Greater Manchester in July, Bev Craig served as leader of Manchester City Council, which was a partner in a joint venture focused on regeneration with Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) called Manchester Life.

The MEN/LDRS investigation this week revealed that there are questions around how much councillors in the city knew when they approved a £35m deal to buy central retail park in September 2017, land which was initially earmarked for a residential development in partnership with ADUG.

Bev Craig wasn’t council leader at that time, but she was a councillor who sat in the September 2017 executive meeting when the central retail park purchase was approved, alongside other senior elected officials in the city.

Questions were raised about whether councillors in that meeting were made aware that a report putting the site’s value at around £33m was explicitly not a formal valuation, and that it was authored by Jonathan Bernstein – son of the late former chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein – who worked for GVA, a UK-based commercial property consultancy and real estate adviser providing valuation, investment and development advice.

Jonathan Bernstein has declined to comment but it is understood he believes the family relationship was known at the time.

The MEN/LDRS also discovered that the land at central retail park was found in a planning application report from 2024 to have issues with contamination.

Bev Craig was one councillor who sat in the Manchester council executive meeting in 2017 when the deal was approved to buy the retail park.

Asked if she felt fully informed about the purchase when making a decision, she said: “I think there’s a difference between the elected member-decision making and some of the assurance that would happen at a senior officer level.

“At the time, that was a fairly customary way of receiving reports.”

Pushed on whether it was right to approve the deal at the time without those details, the mayor said: “So I think you have to, in a council, understand the difference between delegated authority with senior officers who are often paid – if you think about chief executives who are paid a quarter of a million pounds, senior valuations – I think at the time, it just wasn’t customary in local government to have that level of detail.

“When I became leader, you can look at the papers since then, and actually, I utilised Part B a lot more to do the stuff that wouldn’t ordinarily come to elected members in that sense.

“But the way that the executive and therefore the council makes a decision is that you’re receiving that kind of additional assurance around some of the stuff that wouldn’t be in the public domain from senior officers, which was the nature of decision making of its time.

“What I’m being absolutely clear about is that in my time as a councillor from 2011 until becoming leader [in 2021], there were a lot of sites not dissimilar to that, and this was treated in the same way as every other land acquisition that the city council engaged in.”

Questioned if she was aware that Jonathan Bernstein was part of the GVA report, the mayor said: “My memory is good, I pride myself on my memory, but asking me nine years ago what I thought when I’d come in and you have the portfolio holder at the time, which was the leader, the executive member for finance, and the deputy leader that talks on development, each giving you their assurance that things have been done above board, and reading the papers in front of you.

“If you look at other meetings of the executive, if I was bringing something as the executive member for adult social health and wellbeing, my colleagues would trust me to be the expert on that, and then I would present the report.

“So, all I can do at this point is explain how a meeting was run, but I couldn’t, without going back and watching the livestream, give you a full blow-by-blow recollection as to what I was thinking at the time.”

The mayor said ‘nobody questioned’ that purchase in 2017, adding: “When I became leader in 2021, I did change the level of detail that people received, and that was important.”

The LDRS asked Bev Craig about GMCA loans worth £55m to Manchester Life in 2017.

It came after reports that Lib Dem councillor John Leech, chair of the GMCA’s overview and scrutiny committee, told news outlets about concerns around the transparency of the process taken approving the loans.

The mayor said: “The housing loans fund was, as is well reported, something that was set up under the Conservative government, and indeed his government at the time played a significant role in getting across the line with that.

“My view is that the parameters were set of its time, it fulfilled all of the rules and regulations that it needed to, but back to my earlier point around the evolution point, the Good Growth Fund now demands different things.

“I think that the level of detail is greater, I think the level of information available to decision makers is naturally greater because of the fund having grown, and we leverage much more out of the Good Growth Fund than we did before.

“My view is that, of course, the combined authority will always support our overview and scrutiny committee, but the point of overview and scrutiny committee is to scrutinise the decisions of today, and all I can comment is that I became mayor just under three months ago, and I’ll be full and transparent about any future deals going forward.”