Why Does One Of The World's Poorest Countries Sponsor Arsenal?

if you have watched any arsenal games over the last three and a bit seasons you may well have spotted that on the left sleeve of the gunner's shirt is well either an advert or a direct instruction depending on your interpretation of it which reads visit rwanda arsenal are not alone in this latest wave of commercialization which involves having a sponsor on the sleeve of your shirts manchester city have an advert for necks and tires on the sleeve of their shirts liverpool and newcastle's sleeves feature adverts for travel companies expedia and kayak meanwhile watford and wolves have adopted the increasingly common trend in football of advertising cryptocurrencies or crypto trading platforms on their sleeves which is a whole other video for another time the only team in the premier league without a sleeve sponsor these days is everton who presumably don't need a sleep sponsor when they have already sold the advertising rights to their training ground that absolutely no one has heard of and their not yet built new stadium to their owner's best friend for an absolute fortune again another video for another time but there is something quite unique about arsenal's sleeve sponsors that stands out compared to all the rest it's not a bookies a crypto training platform or a sportswear brand in fact it's not even a private company at all no the left sleeve of arsenal shirts is sponsored by a country or more specifically the rwanda development board which is just a rwandan government department arsenal are not the only football club to get the visit rwanda treatment there is also psg you won't find visit rwanda on the parisian's shirts jauren games no no no the sleeves of psg shirts are strictly reserved for the advertising of a state-owned qatari bank but you will find the slogan fairly prominently displayed on the back of most of psg's famously popular training attire which has become a hit with consumers following the club's link up with nike and the jordan branding here is one such example being modeled by one of psg's better known players what is the cost of all this sleeve and training top related advertising which also involves players traveling to rwanda to promote the east african nation i hear you ask close to 20 million pounds a season not an insignificant sum for a country in which the average citizen's income is 780 a year which is equivalent to just 65 a month all of the facts that i've just thrown at you combined with rwanda's highly contentious and disputed human rights record has made these sponsorship deals rather controversial and to some a little confusing why do visit rwanda sponsor european football teams why arsenal and psg what do they stand to get from it and is it right that some of the richest sports teams on the planet both owned by multi-billionaires are accepting state cash from a country in which 39 of its citizens still live below the poverty line those are all questions that we're going to take a look at in today's video in what i think is quite an interesting video but one that i wouldn't recommend to anyone who is looking for a straightforward black and white value judgment since the reality as is so often the case is a little bit more complicated than that rwanda's government and president paul kagame justified their 30 million pound three-year sponsorship agreement with arsenal in 2018 which they paid 40 million pounds to renew for another four years in 2021 by claiming that the slave sponsorship would bring more money into rwanda through tourism than it cost them to sponsor the gunners tourism is seen as a key growth sector by kogami's government already accounting for roughly an eighth of the country's total gdp whilst many african countries are almost entirely dependent upon the mining of natural resources rwanda has focused on a more mixed economy ever since the nation emerged from a devastating war and genocide in the 1990s mining still plays a key role in terms of rwanda's exports but the country also has a significant agricultural sector much of which is centered around the production of tea and coffee a burgeoning hospitality industry and a heavy focus on the service sector in comparison to most of their african neighbours president kagame prides himself on rwanda's reputation as an open environment for foreign businesses and individuals to invest their capital and the tiny far more affluent island of mauritius is the only country in africa to rank higher than rwanda in the world bank's ease of doing business index rwanda has set an ambitious target of 25 annual growth in tourism since 2013 which has been somewhat hindered by the pandemic over the last couple of years but kagame remains undeterred in 2018 a record 1.71 million tourists visited rwanda but the vast majority did so from other african countries with only 1 200 coming from the united kingdom and just 924 from france the luxury travel market is one that rwanda feels well equipped to eat into aiming to become the go-to african destination for wealthy asians north americans and europeans the value of a tourist varies greatly on average depending upon their country of origin with high end american visitors spending an enormous twelve thousand dollars per stay on average when visiting rwanda compared to an average of 1 498 from nigerian visitors who statistics show to be the most lavish spenders in terms of guests from african nations consequently a string of luxury resorts have sprung up in rwanda in recent years most notably perhaps two resorts owned and operated by one and only resorts which is one of the most exclusive hotel chains in the world want to know how much it would cost to stay at the one and only gorillaz nest in rwanda for a week a cool 36 400 us dollars for a single room for two people that is the most basic room of course the silverback suite will set you back 140 000 again just for a single couple sharing a single room for a week that is enough to pay the average salary of over 2 000 rwandans for a month which is simultaneously nauseating but also enlightening as to why there is such an emphasis on getting these high-end guests into rwanda the problem as far as kagame and many rwandans are concerned is that most of the world just doesn't view rwanda as a holiday destination for all of its many wonders rwanda still carries the weight of a genocidal four-year-long civil war between 1990 and 1994 in which between 500 to 800 000 rwandans were killed most of them from the minority tootsie ethnic group and most slaughtered indiscriminately with machetes on an industrial scale and it is for that the rwanda is still best known among much of the world so the rwanda development board are sponsoring arsenal in a drive to increase tourism or at the very least to flick a switch in some people's minds in order for them to actually think of rwanda as a tourist destination when they plan their next holiday or their next vacation for the benefits of our us viewers we'll come to whether or not that is a smart strategy and whether it has worked in just a second but even if you accept the premise i suppose the next question is why arsenal as opposed to any other club to which the most reductive answer would be to say well why not if you're going to sponsor a club you have to pick a specific club so there is nothing particularly unusual about picking arsenal the reason some found it a little troubling about arsenal being rwanda's choice is the fact that president kagame is known to be a passionate arsenal fan in fact just a few days before news broke of rwanda's partnership with arsenal in 2018 kagame had used his presidential twitter account to praise arsene wenger upon his departure kagame was hashtag wenger out in case you were wondering but reluctantly so and still a fan of his and his tweet ended with the words blame the owners you might have thought that would have made stank cronkite reluctant to do business with kagame and rwanda but it is possible either that the deal had already been agreed and was therefore contractually binding by the time that tweet was made or just that cronkite's hands-off approach when it comes to the day-to-day running of arsenal meant that he was oblivious to kagami's tweet entirely nonetheless kagame support of arsenal has led some to question whether rwanda sponsoring arsenal as opposed to any other team is all a little bit too coincidental and perhaps indicative of kagame using state funds to live out his own personal ambitions and to massage his ego an even more common complaint is that simply put a developing nation with a high proportion of impoverished citizens should not be funding a very rich football club which is owned by an american billionaire rwanda has relied heavily on overseas aid ever since the genocide in the 1990s and whilst reducing rwanda's reliance on aid is one of kagame's government's main aims the country still receives more than one billion dollars in aid annually around 60 million pounds of which comes from the uk government that prompted outrage in some quarters including from one mp in the united kingdom over the fact that the uk was providing rwanda with 60 million pounds of aid and rwanda was then spending half that amount sponsoring a premier league football team in truth that framing used by some is a bit misleading since the overseas aid that rwanda receives is reserved primarily for key aspects of human development like infrastructure health and education and it is used for that purpose with the 30 million pounds and subsequent 40 million pounds spent sponsoring arsenal coming out of rwanda's own centralized tourism budget nonetheless there will be some who are uneasy with that chain of events even if they aren't completely interlinked as one or two newspapers in the uk falsely portrayed them also there are plenty of reasons why rwanda would choose to sponsor arsenal rather than a number of other premier league teams aside from the fact that kagami supports them for a start arsenal are the best supported premier league team in africa or at least they were according to data published in 2015 and whilst that is likely to have waned a little bit due to the gunner's struggles and the success of other teams during that time they've also signed pierre-emerick aubameyang since then along with the most expensive african footballer of all time in the form of nicola pepe so perhaps it would not have waned as much as you might think arsenal might not be among europe's elite on the picture this moment in time you can say that again but they were still ranked by forbes as the eighth most valuable football club in the world earlier this year ahead of the likes of psg juventus and atletico madrid so the gunners enjoy enormous global support including being the fourth most followed premier league team in the united states which is a key target demographic for rwanda rwanda's sponsorship of arsenal is not cheap in fact it is the joint most expensive sleeve sponsorship in the premier league but outside of manchester united and possibly liverpool rwanda probably couldn't pick a better club from the premier league at least the next question is whether paying 10 million pounds a season to stick visit rwanda on arsenal's shirt sleeve whilst likely to attract plenty of eyeballs is actually likely to convert into all that many visitors actually visiting rwanda on this front the rwanda development board remains convinced that yes it has been highly effective they claim that their sponsorship of arsenal alone has led to an 8 increase in overall tourism in rwanda though how they can accurately arrive at that figure i'm not quite sure and to be totally honest i suspect they can't that is not to say that it's wrong it could be too high or too low i just don't think it's likely that that can have been particularly scientifically well sourced some data that can be verified is a 2019 poll of arsenal fans one year into the partnership which found that whilst 71 of arsenal fans said that they didn't consider rwanda to be a tourist destination in 2018 that figure had fallen to only 49 by 2019 whether that has translated again into actual tourists is unclear but a shift in perception was part of the plan for rwanda and that is at least evidence of effectiveness on that front the absolute number of tourists visiting rwanda from the united kingdom also increased by five percent prior to the pandemic which rwanda considers to be at least in part due to their sponsorship deal with the gunners very quickly i just want to talk a little bit about rwanda and paul kagame in order to provide some much needed context to this video kagame led the rwandan patriotic front during the rwandan civil war a rebel group based in uganda and the armed forces held responsible for ending rwanda's genocide when the war ended in 1994 kagame initially served as rwanda's vice president from 1994 to the year 2000 though he was always considered to be the person who was actually calling the shots and in 2000 he officially took on the title of president of rwanda kagame's 21 years of rule in rwanda and 27 years if one counts the preceding six as vice presidents have been highly controversial following the genocide kagame soldiers carried out retribution killings which kagame said he didn't support but made no efforts to stop he also sponsored two rebel wars india congo or zaire as it was at the time of the country's first civil war and the second of which would become the deadliest conflict since the second world war domestically kagami is ruled with an iron fist press freedoms in rwanda rank among the lowest anywhere in the world political opponents of kagame's have an unfortunate habit of being killed or of disappearing and elections are a mere formality all of these factors combined have led to kagame being widely derided as a death spot by human rights organizations and foreign politicians often even politicians from countries the rwanda considers to be allies such as the united states on the flip side rwanda has experienced considerable economic growth and improvements in the overall population's standard of living since the year 2000. the country's gdp has risen from barely two billion dollars annually two decades ago to more than 10 billion dollars now with kagame's government targeting seven percent annualized growth which is often considered to be the gold standard among developing countries some have described rwanda's growth as an economic miracle though the extent to which standards of living have improved is disputed particularly in terms of the extent to which inflation and cost of living have offset undisputed increases in income there are parts of rwanda's capital of kigali in particular that have all the hallmarks of a developed economy even a high gdp country but there are also vast swathes of the mountainous landlocked nation which remain impoverished the extent of rwanda's development may be disputed but few would argue that it is one of the fastest growing economies in africa with hopes that the nation's mixed economy will make it more resilient to instability in the region and sudden fluctuations in commodity prices president kagame has stated his ambition to turn rwanda into the singapore of africa though rwanda faces a number of challenges that singapore never did whilst the extent of rwanda's economic development might be open to debate its very existence most certainly is not and key metrics such as life expectancy infant mortality and literacy rates have all made huge strides particularly since 2006. rwanda's parliament and legislature also has the highest proportion of female representation anywhere in the world at more than 60 leading some to view rwanda as a how-to when it comes to increasing female representation within government so that is why kagame's leadership is viewed as being a mixed bag and more or less favorable depending upon how one values economic growth versus human rights i can remember a few years ago watching a grilling of a rwandan politician on youtube in a segment entitled rwanda africa's success story or authoritarian state as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive china post 1978 is the greatest economic success story ever known to man yet china was throughout that period and still remains an extremely undemocratic and authoritarian state there is no juxtaposition there the question or not be whether a country can be authoritarian and dictatorial whilst overseeing economic success we already know the answer to that it's yes the question should be how do you value freedom and human rights when put on one side of a scale and economic development on the other and whether you think that the same economic success would still be possible with a more free open and democratic system in place president kagame undoubtedly enjoys an enormous amount of support in rwanda and there will be rwandans watching this video who take exception to any criticism of him but the fact that critics of his have disappeared remains a fact and however popular he may be free and fair elections never result in one candidate winning 99 of the vote as kagame did in rwanda's last set of presidential elections in the 2021 london mayoral elections a youtuber received two percent of the overall vote the most divorced man of all time who once spent an evening on twitter calling a string of people paedophiles received 1.9 of the vote a man who once drank his own urine got 1.2 percent and count bin face an independent space warrior claimed to be 5965 years old whose flagship policy was to nationalize adele received a further 1 between them they took over six percent of the vote that's my point so you will have to forgive me for not believing that 99 of rwandans support kagame even if support for him is indeed very high we have answered why rwanda sponsor arsenal and psg i suppose given that the reasons are very similar and we have addressed if not fully answered whether doing so is actually a justifiable position on the part of rwanda i'm sure different people will draw different conclusions on that front but it is also worth looking at this from arsenal's perspective or even that of the premier league and asking the question should arsenal have a nation with rwanda's contentious human rights record under kagame on their shirts and should the premier league even allow that to happen if you cannot advertise alcohol or cigarettes on football shirts anymore then why should you be able to advertise a regime witch just to give one example in 2020 arrested a 38 year old gospel singer previously sentenced to 10 years in prison on a conviction of having conspired against the governments of president paul kagame due to a song that he wrote and who subsequently died under suspicious circumstances in police custody i think most people agree that cigarettes and alcohol can be harmful but i suspect the family and friends of casito mojigo and other assassinated or disappeared rwandan dissidents feel the same way about paul kagame and the rwandan government if arsenal are able to justify visit rwanda's sponsorship on account of it attracting tourists to rwanda which improves the economic conditions of people in rwanda then that is fine but how far do you take that argument would arsenal feel comfortable being sponsored by let's say the assad regime in syria or perhaps kim jong-un's dictatorship in north korea given the amount of gulf state capital that flows through the english game every season there is very little reason to believe that they wouldn't or at least only that they would refuse for reasons of optics rather than any squeamishness surrounding the morality of taking money from murderers despots and psychopaths to be clear i am not putting paul kagame in the same bracket as bashar al-assad or kim jong-un nor am i saying that the situation in rwanda is comparable to that of syria or north korea as i said i am taking the argument to its logical extreme rather than claiming that they are like-for-like scenarios the reality is that it is far too simple to label paul kagame as being nothing more than a strong man as many international observers have done but it is also far too simplistic to say that he is simply a benevolent technocrat as his defenders in rwanda like to claim kagame is both and whilst it is easy to moralize about arsenal's decision to take money from his government it is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions of pounds worth of instruments of death and destruction that the uk government very willingly sells to saudi arabia along with the training and maintenance required to operate that equipment in order for the saudis to oversee the greatest humanitarian crisis on the planet in yemen that might seem like a wild tangent but it really isn't when politicians tell football clubs not to do business with despots whilst not following their own advice the response from those clubs will always be you first and as much as that might be the rhetoric of a five-year-old child i'm not sure we can expect much more than that from the owners of premier league football teams sarawanda's sponsorship of arsenal and of psg like president kagame's leadership in general is very messy but there are some absolutes or at least a couple that i can think of one is the fact that whatever your views on kagame rwanda arsenal or anything else for that matter it is very strange that the president of rwanda who holds the highest office in the land basically for as long as he wants to at this stage tweets so infrequently to his 2.4 million followers yet has tweeted multiple times about arsenal football club in the last two months at least at the time of this recording paul kagame has tweeted just five times once about a meeting with germany's chancellor angela merkel once about covered 19 vaccines and three times yes three times or thrice i should say about arsenal's performances and results i mean this one the last of the three tweets i raid following arsenal's defeat to brentford could just as easily be a transcription of something that dt shouted into the microphone on af tv outside of the brentford community stadium surely that is an unusual distribution of a president's official social media channel i mean there must be more important things that have happened in rwanda over the last couple of months to tweet about then the team that they sponsor losing to brentford all right maybe it's just me the other matter in which i hope i'm not alone is in finding it a little distasteful when arsenal sent their players over to rwanda at the start of the partnership and had david luiz sharing videos saying how great rwanda is and how he's going to tell all of his friends to come and visit while staying in a hotel that costs about as much to stay in every night as the average rwandan sits and earns in a year i don't know i don't want to get too holier than doubt with you but there's just something about that that leaves a slightly sour taste in my mouth anyhow that is it for today's video which was somewhat disorganized but there was a lot to get through and i wanted to always relay it back to rwanda's football sponsorship while still providing adequate context hopefully i did that and if this video has ignited a thirst within you for all things rwanda and football related there should also be a link appearing very shortly on the left of your screen for a video about rudy gutendorf the football coach who helped heal some of the wounds between the hutu and tutsi communities in rwanda after being appointed by the rwandan national team on a diplomatic mission at the behest of the german government not long after the genocide thank you all very much as ever for watching today's video i hope you enjoyed it hit the like button if that was the case let me know your thoughts down below in the comments and make sure you're subscribed of course and have notifications turned on for eight side cc sevens you can also find me on social media on twitter and instagram by the username at hrtc7s on both should you wish to do so

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 214,467

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Arsenal, Rwanda, Sponsor, Documentary, Premier League, Arsenal FC, AFTV, Africa, Kroenke, Arteta, Government, Sleeve, Sponsorship, HITC, Sevens, Kagame, President, HITC Sport

Id: dceIhehrmxg

Length: 25min 28sec (1528 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021