Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour will attend the Champions League final

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour will attend the Champions League final in Istanbul tonight, his first appearance at a game in almost 13 years.

Mansour, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates, is believed to have flown to Turkey to watch the club compete for their maiden trophy in the competition.

Since buying City in 2008, Mansour has been present at just one competitive fixture, a Premier League home victory against Liverpool in August 2010. 

He has also watched two exhibition matches in Abu Dhabi. 

However, he has now jetted out on a private plane in a bid to witness history, with City just one win away from clinching a historic Treble this season.

Since buying the club in 2008, Mansour has been present for just one competitive fixture

Pep Guardiola’s side will look to beat Inter Milan and seal a historic Treble in Istanbul tonight

If City beat Inter Milan and become the kings of Europe for the first time, they will become only the second English club – after Manchester United in 1999 – to win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season. 

Mansour will attend the game along with City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and could meet manager Pep Guardiola and his players after the final whistle. 

City have become a dominant force domestically since Mansour’s investment vehicle, the Abu Dhabi United Group, took control at the Etihad Stadium.

Under his stewardship, the club have remarkably won seven Premier League titles in the past 12 years, including five of the last six.  

Mansour will be able to watch the likes of Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland play in the flesh for the first time at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium this evening.

His investment has also seen City build a new training site and expand the Etihad.

Mansour watched City beat Liverpool in the stands at the Etihad back in August 2010 (above)

Guardiola has admitted clinching the Treble would be a ‘dream’ for his heavyweight squad

Guardiola has made no secret of the fact that winning the Treble would be a ‘dream’. 

‘It’s absolutely a dream. Absolutely,’ he said in the lead-up to the showdown. 

‘To achieve things always have to have the correct portion of obsession, desire. Obsession is a positive word. It’s a dream for all of us.’ 

Kyle Walker, meanwhile, believes City’s squad owes it to the owners to win the Champions League due to the sheer amount they have pumped into the club. 

‘The club is missing that one trophy,’ he said. ‘The owners, with the amount of money they have pumped into this club and the investment, we owe that to them.’