Arsenal's sleeve sponsor is a problem What is the truth behind the 'strange' sleeve sponsorship between Arsenal and the African country?

It's not a secret that the Premier League is the richest league in the world. A record due to several factors, not least the team jersey's sponsors, which generate a profit of 281.8 million pounds, about 310 million euros: a frightening sum, often criticized. There are in fact nine teams that have printed on their shirts sponsors linked to the world of betting, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by Labor Party who would ban, through a bill, this type of business relations, considering "bets like tobacco". It would be interesting to understand what the position of the Labor leader Tom Watson, signatory of the proposal, is about a sponsor who has nothing to do with betting, but which is very particular and no less controversial, being provided by a very special Arsenal supporter: Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda. Kagame has never hidden from being an avid fan of the London team, even openly criticizing the work of Arsene Wenger over the years: it's exactly from the "first year after Wenger" that Kagame has established a serious relationship between his favorite team and his country. At the team's debut, the sleeve sponsor on the Arsenal jerseys has left many confused and stunned: a pink salmon strip, on which the word "Visit Rwanda" stands out. 

All this to say that, if the institution to which every professional football team must give an account provides this type of example, it is not really science fiction that even individual clubs take lightly to go into commercial relationships like that. Arsenal is not even the first top club in the world to do it, but its case is undoubtedly particular. In fact, it is not clear what the company should obtain from the agreement, since the economic factor holds only partially; a club so important, one of the most followed in the world, could find another sponsor willing to pay out those figures, if not more. Paradoxically, the only explanation that currently seems to hold up is that of pure sporting passion on the part of Kagame, who fascinated by the idea of ​​being involved in the commercial life of his team decided to invest a huge sum for such a small and poor country. This is the other big problem, on the side of Rwanda: how can you think it's a right move to invest thirty million euros to sponsor an English team, when more than half of your people live in extreme poverty? (A Rwandan citizen lives with around one pound a day, on average). The response of the government has arrived unambiguously from several sides: more tourism will mean more funds to invest in the fight against poverty. In particular, the head of the development department, Clare Akamanzi, has been exposed, always through Twitter, an instrument incredibly used by the politicians of the country, first and foremost by its president.

A motivation that is very difficult to hold up and seems to hide the will of the Rwanda leader to normalize more and more his country in the eyes of the Western community (hence for example the compulsive use of social networks), an operation already partially successful given the excellent consideration that some heads of state reserve to Kagame. Not therefore a sincere desire to increase the economic development and social conditions of their people, but to earn points in the international arena to continue to make their own comfortable; the position of Arsenal that lends itself to this mechanism without hitting the wound becomes even more serious. For now this partnership goes to join a whole slew of unclear and quite questionable reports which can be added to two others which regarding also the FIFA, just to mention the most in view at the time, extraordinarily famous companies, such as Manchester City, owned by the Abu Dabhi United Group, and Paris Saint Germain, of the Qatar Investment Authority: clubs that have poured into the market a frightful and unregulated amount of money, with almost no regulation to limit its actions. Right now, taking up the speech properly made by The Independent, the moral apathy is the host, and none of us poses too many questions about this, until in our houses arrives on time the game we were waiting for; certainly there is now that the world of football seems to be more and more anesthetized, heavily drugged by cash flows and trade agreements of various kinds that are perhaps leading to a point of no return, at the moral level as well as at the economic level and international legislation. We, who are the last wheel of this heavy wagon, we can only make sure not to let the news pass over our heads, but stay informed and ask questions, even if inconvenient: for example if on the sleeves of our favorite team suddenly appears the tourist message of a country checked in view by the international community on topics such as torture, political and cultural oppression, the anti-democracy of its government and the possible complicity of its totalitarian president with a genocide of the neighboring country.