Inside Arsenal’s controversial Visit Rwanda deal – and why they can get a better deal if they ditch sponsor linked to regime accused of murder and torture

The Arsenal hierarchy were braced for the potential backlash. Partnering with an impoverished nation suffering from crisis, including allegations of politically motivated murders, was always going to court controversy. But as is the way in football, money talks.

The figures involved were too good to be sniffed at. The Gunners first signed a £10million-a-year shirt-sleeve agreement with Visit Rwanda, which is part of the Rwanda Development Board governmental body, in 2018, lasting three seasons. Then in 2021, the club extended the partnership.

As well as appearing on the shirt sleeves of Arsenal’s men’s, women’s and youth teams, the Visit Rwanda logo is also on LED boards on matchdays at the Emirates Stadium and interview backdrops.

The agreement has seen several past and present Arsenal players travel to Rwanda for sponsored content; David Luiz’s trip in 2019 was particularly memorable, as he stalked a gorilla in the jungle.

But with the deal up for renewal, this is no laughing matter. Earlier this month, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government wrote a letter to Arsenal owners Stan and Josh Kroenke asking that they end the ‘blood-stained sponsorship deal’ after an invasion of DRC territory involving Rwanda-backed rebel group M23.

The invasion of the city of Goma, home to about as many people as the populations of Leeds and Newcastle combined, has caused an estimated 3,000 deaths, according to United Nations officials.

Mail Sport understands the Gunners are exploring more lucrative sponsorship alternatives and are considering not renewing the partnership for a third term. The legacy of the deal, Arsenal’s commercial revenue situation and the increasing trend of Premier League teams partnering with foreign nations for millions make for a complicated picture.

When the north London club signed their first Visit Rwanda partnership in May 2018, they had just finished sixth in the league, amid a toxic atmosphere among supporters and a significant overhaul as they made their first managerial change for 22 years.

To secure a £10m-a-year sleeve deal while not being in the Champions League nor competing for the league title – and without the gravitas of Arsene Wenger – was a major coup.

When they renewed terms ahead of the 2021-22 season, having finished eighth in the previous campaign, the Gunners again pulled off a financial triumph.

Now, after finishing league runners-up in successive seasons, as well as the return of Champions League football after a six-year absence, Arsenal’s sponsorship ceiling is higher than ever — and they are looking to cash in. A range of other shirt-sleeve options have been considered.

Revenue from sponsorship is crucial in a world driven by Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), so it’s an effective way to build major funds — which can then be spent on players, such as a new striker.

And football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes Arsenal could rake in an extra £10m a year by dropping Visit Rwanda, and following in the fintech footsteps of their rivals.

‘Chelsea have taken a high-risk approach with WhaleFin (terminated in December 2022), followed by somebody similar (BingX) this year. So if you want to go down the fintech, cryptocurrency route, then Chelsea were getting an estimated £20m (a year),’ Maguire tells Mail Sport.

‘To do that, you’ve got to deliver in terms of Champions League football, which Arsenal have done. That makes them very attractive because you’re getting the global eyeballs twice a week at the highest level. So certainly, £10m should be a bottom-line figure and they’d be looking for more.’

The partnership between Arsenal and Visit Rwanda has been heavily scrutinised over the years, with opposition calls reaching fever pitch in 2023. In November that year, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that the Government’s policy to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda and ban them from returning to the UK was unlawful.

It also stated that the policy leaves people sent to Rwanda open to human rights breaches. Even before this ruling, the topic had long been an uncomfortable one for many parties.

The Rwandan government, led by President – and avid Arsenal fan – Paul Kagame, stands accused by multiple human-rights groups of serial abuses. In 2021, the UK government criticised Rwanda at the United Nations Human Rights Council for ‘extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture’.

The government’s official travel guidance ‘advises against all travel to parts of Rwanda’. Arsenal’s shirt sleeve suggests different.

The government advice adds: ‘Terrorist attacks in Rwanda cannot be ruled out. Attacks could be indiscriminate including in places visited by foreigners’, and that LGBT relationships, while not illegal, are ‘frowned upon’. Arsenal’s Gay Gooners supporters’ club declined to comment on the sponsorship deal. 

Kagame’s posts on X about his Arsenal fandom date back to 2011, and he watched the Gunners take on Bayern Munich at the Emirates in April last year, at a time when his government was asking his people to restrict football-related activities while they marked 30 years since the country’s brutal genocide.

Kagame was in the UK to discuss the deportation scheme with then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has since been replaced by Arsenal season-ticket holder in Sir Keir Starmer.

Presidential term limits in the country were scrapped in 2015, giving the 67-year-old Kagame a pathway to stay in charge until 2034 — which would take him to a 34-year reign.

Ahead of their 1-0 defeat by West Ham at the Emirates Stadium, the consensus among Arsenal fans asked about the topic of Rwanda was one of ambivalence.

Most either weren’t aware of it, or were not interested because it’s not about football. ‘No, it’s never come across my mind, just football for me,’ said Alan, 70, a season-ticket holder of 38 years. ‘I have no concerns whatsoever. There’s a lot more going on in the world. I come here to escape from everything else.’

It was in contrast to the pocket of fans who weren’t comfortable with the association. ‘It’s become controversial, it wasn’t before,’ said Ruben, 47, a season-ticket holder of seven years.

‘The hackles started getting raised when the Government had that deportation plan for Rwanda. Then it seemed odd and it was like “Should we still be having that on our sleeves?”

‘And then when I saw that recent open letter (from the DRC government) and looked into a bit more, it’s like, we should review this because it’s probably not the right thing to do.

‘It’s a bit like saying, “Why don’t we visit somewhere in Crimea?” So yes, I can see why it’s problematic.’

Visit Rwanda also have partnerships with Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich. PSG first struck a three-year deal in 2019, before renewing it for a further two years from 2023. It’s worth up to 10m euros a year.

Bayern signed a five-year deal in August 2023. The decision took their supporters by surprise as, just two months previously, Bayern had announced they would not renew their sleeve sponsorship agreement with Qatar’s state airline, Qatar Airways, over that country’s human rights record.

Across the Premier League, there has been a pivot towards Africa for tourism deals. In February 2024, Chelsea linked up with Zanzibar in a promotional deal to boost the island’s tourism industry.

Liverpool inked a three-year partnership with Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority in July 2020 as the club’s official tourism and economic development partner. That ended on June 30, 2024. The Merseyside club had opened an LFC international academy on the island in July 2019.

And Tottenham also tried cashing in on the continent, provisionally agreeing a sponsorship deal with South African Tourism in February 2023, before the sleeve partnership was canned because of uproar in South Africa over how they would be using a reported £42.5m in public funds over three years in a country crippled by severe inequality.

More deals with countries in Africa are expected in the future. That doesn’t surprise Maguire.

He says: ‘Premier League football is incredibly popular in Africa, so it’s a way of improving profile. Rwanda is seen by some people as being a new alternative tourist destination. So what better way for sponsorship than to be promoted by a product which is globally attractive, such as the Premier League?

‘Arsenal are an attractive product: a relatively new stadium, cosmopolitan fan base, and it’s in London. Sponsors like coming to London. So they are a flagship club from that point of view. But they’ve got to be able to deliver Champions League as well, because it’s there or nowhere as far as sponsors are concerned.’

The US is popular too – Crystal Palace (Enjoy Illinois), Bournemouth (Las Vegas), Brighton (Experience Kissimmee, Florida), West Ham (Visit Jacksonville, Florida), Brentford (Visit Tampa Bay, Florida) and Wolves (Visit Lauderdale, Florida) – as is Asia – Leicester (Thailand Privilege), Fulham (Go Mongolia) and Manchester City (Visit Abu Dhabi).

Although Chelsea have a deal with Zanzibar, the island is not their official tourism partner. Chelsea are developing football academies there. Newcastle, owned by Saudi Arabia’s PIF, don’t have a sponsorship partnership with a country per se, but PIF logos have been on matchday LED boards at St James’ Park since their January 15 league match against Wolves. That is, in effect, promotion of a country.

Maguire says: ‘The Premier League is global. People who can afford it go to Premier League matches from other countries. It’s a tourism product, as far as the UK economy is concerned.

‘If I was a tourism agency for an individual country, where can you get the most bang for your buck? The Premier League is a very attractive proposition, because people aren’t watching legacy television.

‘Football is the only product where people are watching live. It’s got excitement, it’s got uncertainty and you’ve got these elite athletes. You add all of those things together, and if you want to associate your country with those values, you can see the benefit of that.’

Since the appointment of Juliet Slot as chief commercial officer in December 2021, Arsenal have squeezed extra money from various commercial avenues with foreign sponsorship deals a predominant area.

In February 2024, their London Colney training base was named after Dubai-based real estate agency Sobha Realty. It was the first time that the training ground, which opened in October 1999 under Wenger, had been sponsored.

Commercial revenue more broadly is an area the Gunners still need to do more in to match their rivals. The north London club increased their income for the year ending June 30, 2024, by a staggering 35 per cent from the previous year to £607.2million, according to the Deloitte Football Money League 2025. Impressively, this was a higher increase than any other Premier League team.

However, their commercial revenue (£213m) was the smallest of all the clubs in the top 10 across Europe, so they need to capitalise on their position now that they are back in the European elite. And for financial as well as moral reasons, the end may be in sight for the Visit Rwanda deal.