Banner urging UAE to release activist flown at Manchester City v Liverpool

• Ahmed Mansoor has been imprisoned since 2017
• City are owned by a member of Abu Dhabi royal family

Manchester City's top-of-the-table Premier League encounter with Liverpool was the subject of an aerial protest on Saturday, with a banner flown over the Etihad Stadium calling for the release of an activist from prison in Abu Dhabi.

The banner, trailed by a chartered plane, read: UAE: Free Ahmed Mansoor!" Mansoor is a poet and blogger who has been imprisoned since 2017 after a court in the United Arab Emirates found him guilty of insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols" and publishing false information to damage the UAE's reputation abroad".