FC Bayern sponsorship: FC Bayern advertises for Rwanda instead of Qatar – the bad reputation remains

After Qatar, FC Bayern presented Rwanda, another country with a dubious reputation, as a major sponsor. The small African country has been ruled for more than 20 years by a man whom some worship as a savior, others call a brutal dictator.

The United Nations has one “Human Development Index“ was developed, in which the factors life expectancy, years in school and university and/or vocational training up to the age of 25 and the per capita income are included. The index is also known as the wealth indicator. Germany is on a scale from 0 to 1 in the latest UN report at 0.942, making it in the top ten out of 191 countries.

Rwanda ranks 165th with a score of 0.534. The state from East Africa is on the threshold of the third of four categories, but is still one of the poorest countries in the world.

Poor country sponsors richest club from rich country

When this country now sponsors the richest football club in wealthy Germany through its sports ministry and the state development agency, that raises questions.

Rwanda is newer “Platinum Partner” of FC Bayern and will in future advertise the tourism campaign on the shirt sleeves of the German champions “Visit Rwanda” (Rwanda is the English spelling of Rwanda). The contract is valid until 2028. The Munich club did not answer a question about the conditions of the sponsorship.

The message from the German champions reads as if only Bayern Munich gave. He will Rwanda “to help in the future with the development for youth football”be “Know-how as a training association” bring in, one “Academy in Rwanda” build up and “organizing activities to promote tourism in Rwanda”.

Qatar paid tens of millions

But above all, FC Bayern will take money, that is the essence of platinum partnerships. The amount is not known, but a sleeve sponsorship at Munich is worth many millions of euros.

Qatar Airways as a previous sleeve sponsor is said to have paid at least 15 million euros annually. The contract with the state airline of the Gulf state expired at the end of June 2022 and was terminated by mutual consent, it said.

For years, influential FC Bayern fans had criticized the partnership because Qatar disregarded human rights and made homosexuality a punishable offense. That should have been a reason for the end of the sponsorship. During the World Cup in Qatar in November and December 2022, however, it was also whispered that the autocratically governed state could lose interest due to the constant criticism and would take the initiative to end it on its own.

Many sources also describe the way Paul Kagame governs Rwanda as autocratic. He has been president since April 2000 and received 98 percent of the votes in the last election. Some sources also speak of Kagame as a dictator who suppresses critics, imprisons them or even has them killed.

Genocide claims at least 800,000 lives in just under 100 days

Paul Kagame has been Rwanda’s defining figure for almost 30 years now. He belongs to the Tutsi ethnic group, which represents a minority in Rwanda, which has been independent since 1962, but from which the political and military leadership was often recruited. There has always been tension between the Tutsi and the country’s other ethnic group, the Hutu, who make up the majority of the population.

Tensions between Tutsi and Hutu escalated to genocide in 1994 after a plane carrying the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana had been shot down. Serious estimates assume at least 800,000 dead and two million refugees, there were hundreds of thousands of rapes.

Rwanda, a colony of the German Reich from 1885 until after the end of the First World War as part of East Africa, had a little more than six million inhabitants before the genocide, mainly of Tutsis and Hutus, who did not want to take part in the crime.

Kagame, as commander of the “Patriotic Army of Rwanda” (APR as an abbreviation for the French language version) captured the capital Kigali about 100 days after the start of the genocide. The slaughter in front of the shoulder-shrugging world community was over.

Ambivalent development under Kagame

The 65-year-old Kagame then became vice president and defense minister. Since 2000 he has led the country, which now has well over 13 million inhabitants.

Rwanda’s development since the end of the genocide is portrayed ambivalently. Kagame is seen as someone who drove the difficult process of reconciliation forward. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung also writes about the President: “He trimmed Rwanda so consistently for economic progress that the East African country is known as the Singapore of Africa, and he has Kigali kept so meticulously clean that visitors to the capital say they feel like they’re in Zurich.”

But the price is very high. The German Press Agency (dpa) writes: “The human rights situation in Rwanda is extremely tense. (…) Government critics are regularly threatened by President Paul Kagame and other high-ranking government officials. Basic human rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are severely restricted. Free, independent media hardly exist.”

“State where human rights are trampled underfoot”

Wenzel Michalski from Human Rights Watch (HRW) told the dpa: “This is a state where human rights are trampled underfoot.” His colleague Wolfgang Büttner wrote in the social network X: “In Rwanda, critics end up in prison and the army is involved in the most serious crimes in Congo.”

Kagame’s government is seen as supporting a rebel group in neighboring Congo, which has been accused of terrible crimes. Germany, among others, stopped providing development aid to Rwanda. But now it’s being paid again. Berlin has pledged 93.6 million euros from October 2022 to the end of 2024.

Qatar maintains “strategic partnership” with Rwanda

Rwanda, which is comparatively poor, and Qatar, which is very rich thanks to the occurrence of fossil fuels, maintain close ties. There is an agreement on one “strategic partnership”the emirate’s state airline holds a 49 percent stake in the state-run Rwandan airline RwandAir, Qatar has also bought a 60 percent stake in the new airport in Kigali. The project is still under construction, and the cost is expected to amount to 1.2 billion euros.

Qatar’s ruler, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is said to be a frequent visitor to Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas, a top tourist attraction.

Essential traits of sportswashing

The great apes should also be part of the activities that have been arranged with FC Bayern. The German record champions are the third top club to be sponsored by Rwanda. The first was that Arsenal FCKagame’s favorite club, the second Paris Saint GermainFrance’s all-time champion owned by Qatar.

The sponsorships are part of Kagame’s plan, which reflects the essence of sports washing carries. For years, the state has been organizing sporting events that guarantee glossy images.

Since 1988, the country, which is enthusiastic about cycling, has been “Tour of Rwanda” driven, which has also received increasing international attention in recent years. This is one of the reasons why the 2025 Road World Cycling Championships will be held in Rwanda. Hundreds of thousands of spectators are expected.

In the basketball Africa League Rwanda is represented by a team, in October 2022 Kagame spoke to Stefano Domenicali, the boss of Formula 1, about the possibility of bringing the pinnacle of motorsport to the African continent.

sports washing is a matter for the President of Rwanda. Kagame is usually present at sporting events, pushing for the photos. It was the same when FIFA paid their respects. The World Football Association held its congress in Kigali in March. Before his re-election as president, Gianni Infantino said that in 2016, before his first election, he considered withdrawing the candidacy because of a threatened defeat by the other candidate, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain. A visit to Kigali, at the memorial for the victims of the genocide, convinced him to take up the challenge. “Who am I to give up”asked Infantino during his speech at the congress in Rwanda, “What this country went through and how it got back up afterwards inspires the whole world.”