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