A company owned by Manchester City’s proprietor, Sheikh Mansour, was granted preferential access to development land by council leaders in what has been described as a “sweetheart deal”.
Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the owner of the football club and a stakeholder in nearby Co-op Live—the largest indoor arena in Europe—signed the 10-year agreement with Manchester City Council in 2015.
The arrangement, disclosed following a Freedom of Information request, gave ADUG the “right of first refusal” on council-owned land earmarked for sale in Ancoats and New Islington.
The site is also where Andy Burnham’s planned long-term base, Number 10 North, is due to be built.
The existence of the agreement was first reported by Manchester-based online newspaper The Mill. It was signed by the council’s then chief executive, Sir Howard Bernstein, who later became a strategic development adviser to City Football Group, an ADUG subsidiary, before his death aged 71 in 2024.
Rival developers accused the council—one of the 10 authorities making up the Greater Manchester Combined Authority—of giving Abu Dhabi “the red carpet treatment” while failing to offer the same access to British-based companies. The combined authority was overseen by the Prime Minister during his nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester.
One developer told The Sunday Times: “This is a sweetheart deal between Abu Dhabi and Manchester City Council.”
The developer said the agreement had “held some of us back”.
Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group signed the agreement with Manchester City Council
Under the 10-year contract, new projects in the designated area were to be developed exclusively by Manchester Life, the joint venture formed by Manchester City Council and ADUG.
Bev Craig, the former Labour leader of Manchester City Council who recently won the by-election to replace Mr Burnham as Greater Manchester Mayor, served as a Manchester Life director until last month.
Mr Burnham praised ADUG last week as a “huge partner” in Manchester’s development. His comments came despite Manchester City being found guilty by an independent commission of breaching Premier League financial regulations the previous week.
The club has appealed against the ruling, which concluded that Manchester City had inflated revenue and reduced costs by more than £900 million.
The commission also found that the club had used money from ADUG to substantially increase the value of its sponsorship agreements.
The 2015 agreement between ADUG and Manchester City Council was intended to “promote residential development”.
Manchester Life received a £35.1 million loan from Greater Manchester’s controversial £1 billion Housing Investment Loans Fund (HILF), a taxpayer-backed scheme designed to encourage development.
HILF has faced criticism because many of the projects it supported contained no affordable housing, while most of its funding went towards city-centre skyscrapers rather than developments in towns across the wider region.
Cotton Fields is among the residential and commercial projects built by Manchester Life, the joint venture between ADUG and the city council, in Ancoats and New Islington
The late Sir Howard Bernstein signed the 2015 land agreement
The council’s partnership with Abu Dhabi went ahead despite concerns raised by human rights groups over the alleged arbitrary detention of dissidents and the UAE’s funding of militants in Sudan.
In 2023, human rights group Fair Square said: ‘Politicians in Manchester are as effusive about the benefits that the UAE has brought to Manchester as they are silent about the UAE’s human rights record and their close relationship with senior figures in its government.’
Human Rights Watch sent a letter to all candidates in the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election calling them to ‘speak out on UAE abuses and make it clear where you stand’.
Mr Burnham received personal congratulations from Sheikh Mansour on the day he became Prime Minister, with the UAE ruler posting on X: ‘I look forward to working together to further build upon the close and longstanding ties between our two countries and peoples.’
A Manchester City Council source told The Sunday Times that Manchester Life delivered £1.25billion of regeneration, creating 1,500 new homes including affordable properties, preserving two historic mills, and developing 30,000 square feet of commercial space.
In July, the council admitted to ‘weaknesses in documentation, monitoring and assurance’ of its arrangements with private developers in a review.
Speaking last week, Mr Burnham originally said he ‘would be really concerned’ if Manchester City’s owners sold up after the guilty verdicts.
He told the BBC: ‘They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester … into the global force that it is.’
But a Downing Street source later clarified his comments, stressing that the Prime Minister believed ‘the initial judgment is serious and there can’t be any suggestion that anyone is above the rules’.
The Daily Telegraph reported the UAE is now threatening to withdraw billions of pounds of investment towards a high-technology hub between Oxford and Cambridge.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats say Mr Burnham should publish details of meetings with ADUG and declare any hospitality from Manchester City.
A Manchester City Council spokesman has previously said: ‘We do not recognise the criticisms linked to the disposal of public land. There is no financial benefit to the council through this partnership.’
