Manchester council gave Sheikh Mansour's Abu Dhabi firm 'sweetheart' first offers on development land under controversial 2015 deal

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour’s company was given preferential access to building land by council bosses in a ‘sweetheart deal’, it has emerged.Abu Dhabi United Group, which owns the football club and has a stake in the nearby Co-op Live, the largest indoor arena in Europe, agreed the 10-year contract with Manchester City Council in 2015.Details of the contract, which gave the company ‘right of first refusal’ on land the council was planning to sell around Ancoats and New Islington, were revealed under a Freedom of Information request.The area is where the long-term home of Andy Burnham’s Number 10 North is due to be built.Existence of the contract – signed by Manchester City Council’s then chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein, who went on to be a strategic development adviser for City Football Group, a subsidiary of ADUG, prior to his death aged 71 in 2024 - was revealed by Manchester-based online newspaper The Mill.Other developers accused the council – one of 10 councils which form the Greater Manchester Combined Authority overseen by the Prime Minister in his nine years as mayor - of giving Abu Dhabi ‘the red carpet treatment where other British-based developers are not’.One told The Sunday Times: ‘This is a sweetheart deal between Abu Dhabi and Manchester City Council’.The developer claimed the arrangement ‘did hold some of us back’. Sheikh Mansour's Abu Dhabi United Group entered into deal with Manchester City CouncilUnder the 10-year deal, new schemes were to be developed exclusively by Manchester Life, a joint venture between Manchester City Council and Abu Dhabi United Group.Bev Craig, until recently the Labour leader of the city council but who won the by-election to succeed Mr Burnham as Greater Manchester Mayor, was a director of Manchester Life until last month.ADUG was praised last week by Mr Burnham as a ‘huge partner’ in the city of Manchester’s development – despite Manchester City being found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations by an independent commission last week.The club has lodged an appeal against the verdict, which found MCFC had inflated revenue and reduced costs by more than £900m.The commission found the club had used money from ADUG to significantly increase the size of sponsorship deals.The 2015 contract between ADUG and Manchester City Council was signed to ‘promote residential development’.Manchester Life was lent £35.1m by Greater Manchester’s controversial £1bn Housing Investment Loans Fund, which provided tax-payer-funded loans to stimulate development.HILF has been criticised because many of the schemes it supported did not contain affordable housing and most of the cash bankrolled city centre skyscrapers rather than outlying towns. Pictured is Cotton Fields, among the housing and commercial developments in Ancoats and Islington built by Manchester Life, the joint venture between ADUG and the city council The late Sir Howard Bernstein, whose signature was on the 2015 land agreementThe joint venture between the council and Abu Dhabi came despite human rights groups’ concerns about arbitrary detention of dissidents and funding from the United Arab Emirates for 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 £1.25bn 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 spokesperson 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.’