While Arsenal fans continue protesting about the club’s sponsorship deal with Visit Rwanda, the African country’s tourism board has signed a deal with another top European football side.
Spanish giants Atletico Madrid have agreed a three-year contract with Visit Rwanda, and their men’s and women’s teams will carry its logo on their shirts next season.
Rwanda’s long-standing partnerships with Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain have come under the spotlight after increased violence in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where authorities say 7,000 people have been killed since January.
The Congolese government accuses Rwanda of arming M23 rebels and sending troops to support the militants. Despite assertions from both the United Nations and United States, Rwanda has denied supporting the M23.
A section of Arsenal’s support has formed a group named Gunners for Peace and are calling on the Premier League club not to renew its deal with Visit Rwanda as the partnership does not fit the club’s “values and standards”.
They believe the sleeve sponsorship, which is reportedly worth more than £10m ($13.3m) per year, runs out at the end of this season.
The group has distributed armbands to cover up the Visit Rwanda logo on kits, and held a protest outside the Emirates Stadium ahead of Tuesday’s 1-0 defeat by PSG in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final tie.
A small number of fans of the French club donned the armbands and joined followers of the north London outfit in standing behind a banner reading ‘Drop Visit Rwanda’.
“I stand with human rights and am not with this kind of sponsor,” PSG fan Chakib told BBC Sport Africa.
“We are rivals in football, but we are brothers to defend human rights.”
Arsenal said the club will not be commenting on the Gunners for Peace campaign, while a Rwanda government spokesperson has defended their sports partnerships and said they helped boost the country’s economy.
PSG recently renewed its partnership with Visit Rwanda until 2028, while Bayern’s deal expires the same year.
Fans of both sides have held up banners criticising the partnerships during games this season.
Rwanda’s values ‘align’ with Atletico’s
The deals with top European clubs tie into Rwanda’s ambition to position itself as a premier global hub for investment, tourism and sports development.
But Rwanda’s government has been accused of investing in sport to enhance its image amid accusations of human rights violations in the country – a strategy labelled by critics as ‘sportswashing’.
Alongside the Visit Rwanda partnerships, Kigali is set to be the venue for cycling’s World Road Championships in September but hopes of the country hosting a Formula 1 race appear to have receded.
The Rwandan government said its sports partnerships had played an important role in the country’s “economic transformation” since 1994, and that the tourism campaign helped generate nearly $650m (£488m) in tourism revenues last year.
Regarding the latest deal, Jean-Guy Afrika, the chief executive of the Rwanda Development Board, said Atletico Madrid’s “values of resilience, discipline, and excellence” closely aligned with Rwanda’s “national ethos and transformation journey”.
The Visit Rwanda logo will be visible immediately, as it will appear on the front of Atletico’s men’s first team’s training and warm-up kits in the remaining five matches of the La Liga season as well as during the Fifa Club World Cup in June and July.
From next season, it will also appear on the women’s first team’s training and warm-up kits and on the back of shirts of both of the club’s senior teams.
An Atletico official highlighted that Rwanda was a country “in constant growth” and added the deal had “great importance” as part of the club’s aims of international expansion.
Sovereignty agreement and peace talks
The decades-long conflict in eastern DR Congo has intensified since January when M23 staged an unprecedented offensive, seizing the cities of Goma and Bukavu and sparking fears of a wider regional war.
Rwanda has said its forces are acting in self-defence against the Congolese army and allied militias, some of which it accuses of links to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
DR Congo also accuses Rwanda of illegally exploiting its mineral deposits, which Rwanda denies.
At the end of last week DR Congo and Rwanda signed an agreement to respect each other’s sovereignty and come up with a draft peace deal by Friday.
That agreement in Washington DC came about after the government in Kinshasa turned to the United States for help in exchange for access to mineral deposits, and both sides now expect significant investments facilitated by the US government and private sector.
Meanwhile, DR Congo and the M23 group said last week that they were committed to peace, expressing hopes that a permanent ceasefire could be reached.
More than a week of talks mediated by Qatar have been described as “frank and constructive”.
Congolese Arsenal fan Tresor Kudabika, who is part of the Gunners for Peace campaign, said that peace negotiations would not change their ultimate target of getting the club to end the Visit Rwanda deal.
“Some way or another we will find a way to end this conflict, but it is not the right moment for Arsenal to keep this deal,” he told BBC Sport Africa.
“It is not giving a good image.”
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