I often joke with friends that I, at times, serve as a reference point for “the duality of man”. This because of the two vastly different worlds I operate in professionally and privately.

I am sure I have written for LabourList before, on the fact that the majority of my closest friends – despite my appeals to change this – do not care for politics in the slightest. They see relatively little value in it and rarely join the dots as to how it affects their day-to-day lives. They keep me grounded in reality and for that I am always grateful.

However, on occasion, an issue does manage to transcend the political bubble of Westminster and make its way to even those who refuse politics most of the time. One such matter has done so recently, thus I think it is important we talk about it.

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This is of course, the issue of our Prime Minister, and his complicated stance on Manchester City football club.

For transparency, I am told I must declare I am a Manchester United fan – and a strong one at that. Please have the faith in me that this email will not just be a hit piece on a football club I struggle to tolerate. Nor will it be 300 words of gloating about the nature in which City’s achievements of the past decade have miraculously disintergrated in the eyes of football fans everywhere, being seen as nothing more than a “sham”.

Rather the purpose of this piece is to communicate to the Labour membership, at all levels, just how delicate this situation is across the nation among ordinary people – many of whom have communicated their frustration directly to me, following the PM’s comments in the last few days.

The Premier League is, arguably, the UK’s strongest global brand. Football is the world’s language. Having the greatest and most competitive top-flight league in the world is undoubtedly a benefit for British soft power. But this can be a double-edged sword, as, perhaps best evidenced by the knots the UK finds itself tied in over the Manchester City case.

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The fact that Sheikh Mansour, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling royal family and vice president of the UAE, owns Manchester City is not Andy Burnham’s fault. The ownership takeover happened in 2008 – nine years before Burnham became Mayor of Greater Manchester.

While we can all debate if Mansour’s ownership does or does not equate to state ownership – given the context of what is happening – the lines are blurry at best.

Reports suggest that Abu Dhabi is threatening to pull crucial funding from the UK and harm bi-lateral relations, in retaliation for the independent finding that Manchester City are guilty of multiple financial rule breaks. This could see a real impact on the establishment of the Oxford-Cambridge tech corridor, key to the government’s growth mission.

Given the UK’s current economic position, I can understand why the Prime Minister would be really concerned about any impact on potential investments. Thinking about this bigger picture of how we can get Britain’s economy growing faster, will take up significant parts of his day.

However, when asked for his position on the ownership following this scandal, the Prime Minister’s lack of critique for a club found guilty of cheating by an independent board – seemingly focused more on his fear of losing investment partners – has gone down like a cup of cold sick amongst the public.

The ordinary person is not spending their day thinking about harms to investment in the Oxbridge tech-corridor. They are not looking at this situation through the same lens as Burnham has to. They see a club found guilty of financial doping, of cheating. They want justice and fairness. That is the beauty, in many ways, of sport. We all agree to play by the rules.

To see reports of a foreign state try to use its economic and diplomatic force to circumvent sporting justice in our nation, only angers people more.

I can understand Burnham’s fearfulness at coming across too brash, but I can also see why his position is viewed as unacceptable and disappointing among the public.

One of the biggest factors of his mass appeal is that Burnham connects with ordinary people and feels authentic as “one of us”. That is something rare and quite unique in a time of such distrust in politics and the system. It must be protected as much as possible.

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Situations like this have to be avoided. The worst thing for Burnham and Labour would be for the detractors to spin our “one of us” narrative, into “one of them politicians” – which would be a hole Labour would find very difficult to climb out from.

The Manchester City scenario has thrown a very serious question to Burnham and his team that needs to be thought about. That question is of the balance between being a ‘man of the people’ and Prime Minister ‘for the people’.

An argument in favour of ‘the greater economic good’ may say keep the Abu Dhabi’s on side regardless of Manchester City’s faults – but I fear the people, who value the sanctity of football, may disagree.

And, let’s face it, there are far more people who care for the rules of football than the hazy norms of geopolitics.