Arsenal are in advanced talks to renew their sleeve sponsorship with Visit Rwanda, even as mounting pressure from supporters and human rights groups has seen Bayern Munich scale back their own partnership with the country.
Reports earlier this year suggested Arsenal were considering walking away from the agreement, but it now seems that the club intend to continue the partnership.
The deal, currently worth around £10 million per year, has been a fixture on Arsenal’s shirts since 2018 and was renewed in 2021. It is now due for renegotiation, and club officials have held discussions with Rwanda’s Development Board over an extension “on improved terms”.
The prospect of a renewal has angered many Arsenal fans, who have long criticised the relationship as a form of state-sponsored sportswashing. A supporter-led campaign launched in the spring urged the club to sever ties, arguing that accepting money from a regime accused of fuelling violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo undermines Arsenal’s values.
“Arsenal fans everywhere have had enough of the club that we love helping Rwanda to sportswash its reputation,” said co-organiser Chris Reed.
Reed and other concerned fans sought to raise the equivalent value of the sponsorship themselves to demonstrate that Arsenal could afford to end the deal without worrying about the money. They point to findings by the United Nations, G7, and UK government, all of whom have accused the Rwandan state of supporting armed militias in eastern Congo. The UNHCR estimates that more than seven million people have been displaced by the conflict.
The controversy has not been limited to Arsenal. At the same time as Arsenal were reportedly ignoring requests from the DRC Foreign Minister to discuss the club’s ties, Bayern were sending representatives to the country to assess the situation.
The German giants, who signed a five-year partnership with Rwanda in 2023, have now revised their arrangement following protests by their own supporters.
The club announced in August that it would phase out “Visit Rwanda” branding and transition the agreement into a youth development initiative.
“The new arrangement transitions the relationship away from a commercial sponsorship to a dedicated partnership focusing on football development in Rwanda through the expansion of the FC Bayern Youth Academy in Kigali,” Bayern said in a statement.
By contrast, Arsenal’s American ownership appears to be deepening ties. At the end of September, Stan Kroenke’s LA Rams became the first NFL team to sign a partnership with Visit Rwanda, extending the country’s reach into the US market and raising further questions about the multi-club agreements behind the campaign.
In the world of crazy money involved in Premier League football, the £10m a year Arsenal receive from the deal is a drop in the ocean of their overall income in any given season. You could make the argument that no business would say no to £10m, but that rests on Arsenal not being able to find another sleeve sponsorship deal, which seems highly unlikely.
This is a choice and one that sadly fits with other decisions the club have made recently where they have put everything else ahead of acting morally.
Whether Arsenal choose to follow Bayern’s lead and repurpose the relationship towards community or developmental goals remains to be seen, but for now, the message from Kigali, and increasingly from Arsenal, is that the partnership will continue unchanged, except for the amount of money the club receive.