International
Arsenal's Visit Rwanda sponsorship lucrative deal, no charity
Colin
Millar, a football journalist wrote an article, on February 21, titled, “Arsenal’s
Visit Rwanda sponsorship and the dark side to a hideous sportswashing agenda.”
Millar
ventured into a field where he showed he is a total stranger. Trying to combine
sports reporting, politics and human rights could not make the stew he is used
to cooking.
To
start with, the two top flight European professional football clubs, Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain, both have multi-million sponsorship
agreements with the Rwandan government, as Millar says. Yes, the “sponsorship
agreements” are not about charity. Instead, they are about good business to
attract people from all over the world to visit Rwanda.
It’s not about President Paul Kagame giving away sponsorship money
because he is an Arsenal fan as Millar and other global north writers before
him have tried to make the world believe.
“Watch any
match involving Arsenal or Paris Saint-Germain and the message is impossible to
miss,” Millar rightly says.
What he does
not mention is that of the millions of viewers who watch the Visit Rwanda advert;
a good number visit Rwanda and spend thousands of dollars there. These tourists
will fly with RwandAir, crisscross the country guided by local tour operators, stay
in hotels, and visit wild life in national parks. All their expenditure boosts
Rwanda’s economy.
There are
other people from the global north who think like Millar. For these minds,
African countries such as Rwanda should not engage in big investments. Some of
them so often remind leaders on the continent that the poor African countries
are using their money. Such ill framed stories have been around for some
time.
When the 1994
genocide against the Tutsi had just ended, Rwanda did not have a five star
hotel. But because Rwanda’s leadership had a vision to position Rwanda as an
international conference destination, the first five star hotel was built. The
‘donors’ and people like Millar criticized the government decision the same way
they are doing now with the Arsenal and PSG deals.
After the
hotel was completed, the same people who were criticizing the government were
the first to book rooms because it was of good standard. The hotel was later privatized
and is currently called the Kigali Serena.
In recent
years, Rwanda invested in a multimillion Convention Centre which critics thought
would turn into a white elephant. It did not. Rwanda’s miraculous turnaround of
the economy after the genocide against the Tutsi, is about taking bold and hard
decisions that are not easy for narrow minded mortals to understand.
Millar likes to emphasize that Rwanda is one
of the 20 poorest countries in the world.
Well, he also
needs to understand that that is the very reason why Rwanda has to think out of
the box so as to come out of the poverty trap. Poverty does not mean that the
thinking capacity of Rwanda’s leadership is poor. Rwanda’s leadership thinks
big. The Arsenal or Paris Saint-Germain deals are well thought investments that
are paying returns.
The issue
should not be about the amount of money invested but about the amount of
returns.
Reading
Millar’s article, one discovers that he actually knows very well the successes
of the Rwanda-Arsenal deal, but tries hard to hide the truth. In his own words,
he noted, “Since striking the initial agreement in 2018, Arsenal have visited
the East African country on a number of occasions, with former defender David Luiz filming promotional content the
following year. Luiz posed for photos with the nation’s mountain gorillas
before taking time to visit president Kagame with personalized Gunners shirts.
The Brazilian
said: “I’m going to recommend all my friends to spend their holidays in
Rwanda.”
The Arsenal
stars definitely spend big while in Rwanda. Mixing a supposedly sports news article with political statements about
the arrest of terrorism convict Paul Rusesabagina, alleged human rights issues,
and how long President Kagame has been in power simply shows that the author was
interested in settling political scores with Rwanda, using a wrong card.
Stating that Rusesabagina was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest
civilian honour in the United States, by President George W. Bush in 2005, is inconsequential to the case and charges
he was convicted for – founding and bankrolling a terror organization that
killed people in Rwanda. If it is an issue of being famous, Osama Bin Laden was
more famous as a billionaire. How did he end up?
Bin Laden was summarily executed for being the leader of Al-Qaida.
Rusesabagina was tried before courts of law. Compare the rule of law applied
and human rights for both scenarios.
It is Rwandan people who decide how long president Kagame should stay in
power. If Rwandans still need him to stay, why should foreigners be more concerned?
Ironically, people like Millar, never question why the Queen of England
has been on the throne since February 6, 1952 until
today, or why the former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was in office for 16 years.
It has not gone down well with Rwanda haters that Rwanda will host the
Commonwealth Summit. People like Millar will keep on recycling all sorts of
allegations in Western media, meant to tarnish the image of President Kagame
and the government of Rwanda in general.
What Rwanda's detractors do not know is that the more they try to
mudsling Kagame and the Rwandan government, the more Rwandans realize that they
have a great leader who has achieved a lot for the country.
Rwanda came out of the ashes and lived on because of the visionary
leadership and resilience of its people. It is only those who do nothing that
are not criticized. Millar and others like him should know that Rwanda is well
and will keep on getting better and better.
They should stay in their lane and let Rwandans rebuild their country the
way they want.