Etihad Campus deals leave Manchester council with minority management stake

Manchester City Council now holds a minority stake in the company running the Etihad Campus, after changes that gave Co-op Live a 33.3% share.

The arrangement is part of a network of agreements covering the 200-acre sports and entertainment site. Its assets are worth more than £1bn. The council still owns the Etihad Stadium, which Manchester City occupies under a 250-year lease.

Naming rights and public ownership

In 2010, the council agreed to sell stadium naming rights to City for £750,000 a year. Months later, Etihad Airways agreed to pay an estimated £10m annually for those rights.

The sponsorship extended to surrounding publicly backed sports facilities built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Sport England had to approve the replacement of the SportCity name with Etihad Campus in 2011. The council continues to administer naming rights across the wider estate.

The council says its stadium freehold arrangements have generated more than £14m in additional income since the agreement. Naming-rights payments include annual increases linked to RPI inflation. Income from the stadium arrangements is reserved for sport and leisure investment.

Council staff and deals under review

The estate management company was previously owned equally by the council and City’s owners. That changed when Co-op Live, the £450m arena which opened in 2024 and is part-owned by Abu Dhabi, took its stake.

The council still employs staff for the private company. An advertisement for a £72,000-a-year strategic manager placed responsibility for security and travel planning with a council employee reporting to the company’s board. The council says estate management funds reimburse its costs.

Other agreements are being examined. These include three loans totalling £55m to Abu Dhabi-controlled property businesses. The council also plans to review a housing partnership with Abu Dhabi United Group under which it received less than £3m while almost 1,800 homes were built.

Greater Manchester mayor Bev Craig has said there are no plans for further property agreements with Abu Dhabi.

Christopher Davidson, author of Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, warned that further investment could be withdrawn if City’s owners leave the club following its financial-rules case. That is a potential outcome, not an announced decision.