Premier League and FA cozy up to Government Ministers with free Taylor Swift tickets worth £17,000
MP's accepted £28,000 in sporting hospitality in the past month. Manchester City FC paid for a MP to attend last months Community Shield. Plus PM Keir Starmer also accepted free tickets to see Swift.
This week, the House of commons published the latest register of financial interests covering the period 05 August 2024 to the 02 September 2024. The list contained all new donations and hospitality declared by MP’s over the last month.
One name jumped out from the register - Taylor Swift.
Analysis by the Pitch inspection has found that since August 2024, Three government ministers, the PM’s Private Parliamentary secretary and a further three MP’s have accepted 16 tickets to see Taylor Swift perform at Wembley - all funded by the FA and Premier League.
The value of the 16 tickets stands at £8,986 and follows on from last months news that the PM Keir Starmer and a further 4 other Labour MP’s also accepted free tickets for the Eras tour- all funded by the FA, EPL and Liverpool Football Club and valued at £8,700.00.
In total the Labour Party (plus Ed Davey) have accepted 28 free tickets for Swift’s sell-out tour worth a staggering £17,686 - All funded for by the English Premier League, the FA and Liverpool Football Club.
The full list of MP’s who accepted tickets is as follows:
PM Keir Starmer.
Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting.
Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones.
Labour MP’s - Joe Morris, Chris Ward, Liam Byrne, Dan Carden, Kim Johnson and Kevin Mckenna.
Leader of the Lib Dems, Ed Davey.
Manchester City Football Club, also got in on the act and paid for Labour MP Shaun Davies to attend last months Community Shield match against Manchester United. City also covered the hospitality costs - valued at £888.
Man City are no strangers to handing out hospitality to MP’s and have donated free tickets to parliamentarians worth £9,544 over the past year - Including two tickets handed to the PM, Keir Starmer to attend last season’s Premier League match against Arsenal (worth £900).
The PM has also declared freebies from at least 7 other professional football clubs in the past 12 months including West Ham, Norwich City, Brighton, Wolves, Spurs and Manchester United.
You can read the full declaration of MP’s financial interests here:
