Arsenal’s partnership with Rwanda poses plenty of questions
The objective here isn’t to single Arsenal out by any stretch. Quite the opposite, in fact. To pre-empt the inevitable whataboutery that will greet this article, virtually all of football, and virtually everyone in it, is in some way tainted by the stench of unwholesome regimes and their deep wells of lucre. Manchester City and Abu Dhabi. PSG and Qatar. The vast sums of Russian and Chinese investment in a number of European clubs. Uefa are taking Euro 2020 and next year’s Europa League final to Azerbaijan, another country that the UN torture panel eventually gave up trying to investigate.
This is the point: we’re all in this. Whenever we decide to wallow in football’s delicious bucket of filth, we’re all implicated, however obliquely. But the very least we can do is stay informed. To know. To see and to question. It was interesting to note that when Arsenal unveiled its new partner this week, its fans were almost unanimously opposed. Not because of any ethical qualms over Rwanda itself, over the tortures or the extrajudicial killings or the shambolic excuse for a democratic process, but because the badge on the sleeve looked ugly.
Rwanda and the Kagame regime are banking on this. They’re betting that Arsenal, its fans, and followers of football more generally, don’t quite care enough to talk about any of this. They’re counting on your lack of curiosity. They’re relying on your apathy. They’re hoping your tribalism and growing antipathy to the media will far outweigh any vague twinges of unease. They’re depending on you deciding that it’s all just a bit depressing, a bit distant, and simply looking the other way. There’s more than one way for you to prove them wrong.