How Rwanda Used Elite Football to Sportswash a War in Congo

For years, millions of football fans around the world cheered goals under a slogan stitched quietly onto elite jerseys: Visit Rwanda.

What most of them never saw was the other side of the branding, a war unfolding just across Rwanda’s western border, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where civilians were being killed, raped, and displaced in a conflict repeatedly linked by the United Nations to Rwandan support for the M23 rebellion.

According to UN reports, New York Times investigations, and human rights organisations, Rwanda’s government has played a central role in backing the M23 armed group, an accusation Kigali denies, but which has been documented year after year. As the violence escalated, so did Rwanda’s investment in elite global sport.

Football as a Political Shield

Beginning in 2018, Rwanda’s tourism board signed high-profile sponsorship deals with Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, and Atletico Madrid. The message was simple: Rwanda as a modern, peaceful, attractive destination.

The method was effective. Football is emotional, tribal, and global. A logo on a sleeve travels further than any press release. It creates familiarity, even affection.

But this was not neutral marketing. It was sportswashing: using the prestige of sport to distract from political violence.

As UN experts later reported, during the same years that “Visit Rwanda” appeared on European kits, M23 fighters, supported by Rwandan forces, were accused of: Massacres of civilians, Sexual violence, including gang rap, Forced displacement of millions, Looting of Congolese minerals.

Fans Break the Silence

What made this story different is that fans refused to play along.

Arsenal supporters formed Gunners for Peace. PSG fans launched petitions signed by tens of thousands of people. Bayern supporters unfurled banners accusing their club of betraying its values.

Their message was blunt:

Even Tottenham, Arsenal’s fiercest rival, became a symbol of protest, a way of saying there are lines football should not cross.

Surveys showed overwhelming opposition among supporters. For many, the sponsorships were no longer just uncomfortable; they were morally indefensible.

Congo Pushes Back

For Congolese voices, the issue was never abstract.

DRC Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner wrote directly to Arsenal, Bayern, and PSG, calling the deals blood-stained sponsorships and reminding clubs that their logos were being worn. At the same time, Congolese civilians suffered one of the world’s most overlooked humanitarian crises.

Human rights activists stopped supporting clubs they loved. Some walked away from football altogether.

Most Congolese activists put it:

“When fans wear those shirts, they don’t know they’re wearing propaganda.”

The Image Cracks

Eventually, the pressure worked.

• Arsenal announced it would not renew the partnership.

• Bayern Munich restructured its deal, quietly removing branding.

• PSG faces growing scrutiny and protests.

Rwanda insists the partnerships were about tourism and youth development. But the timing tells another story: as evidence of its role in eastern Congo mounted, so did its reliance on sport to soften its image.

Even after a U.S.-brokered peace deal, fighting continues in eastern Congo. Logos may disappear from sleeves, but the consequences of the war remain etched into Congolese lives.

Football Is Not Neutral

This episode leaves an uncomfortable truth for global sport.

Football clubs are not courts of law. But they are not innocent either. When they accept state money, they inherit the moral weight of that state’s actions.

Rwanda tried to turn football into a shield against accountability. Instead, football became a mirror, reflecting a contradiction too large to ignore.