Rwanda follows Qatar: FC Bayern Munich is entering into the next delicate partnership

Rwanda follows Qatar
FC Bayern Munich enters into the next delicate partnership

By Simone Schlindwein, Kampala
08/28/2023, 7:24 p.m

Bayern Munich’s partnership with Qatar Airways ends in the summer, and the record champions are now entering into a new one with Rwanda. The country is hoping for more tourists and more income in the long term. Like the emirate, the new sponsor is highly controversial.

At the first Bundesliga home game of the new season against Augsburg on Saturday, a new advertising banner in Munich’s Allianz Arena made it clear: FC Bayern Munich has signed a new sponsorship deal. This time with Rwanda. “Visit Rwanda” reads the lettering on the side rail. The premium sponsorship agreement with the Rwandan state investment authority is set to run for five years. The German sports club will set up a training academy for boys and girls in Rwanda and advertise the country. Rwanda’s goal is to attract more tourists and possibly investors to the small East African country.

It is not yet known how many euros the deal is for. There may be reasons for this: When Rwanda signed a contract totaling almost 35 million euros with the English football club Arsenal in 2018, criticism rained down from all sides, because the country received development aid after all. At the time, Rwanda’s government declared that it expected long-term income of over 700 million euros from this. In the meantime, Rwanda has expanded its international advertising contracts to include the basketball championship. Qatar club Paris Saint-Germain also entered into a partnership with “Visit Rwanda” in 2020. In March 2023, FIFA held its first congress after the World Cup in Qatar, also in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

FC Bayern was again looking for a new advertising partner. At the end of June, the sports club had not renewed the previous sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways, which had been running since 2018. The reason: The partnership with Qatar was repeatedly criticized by Bayern fans after the controversial human rights situation and the enormous exploitation of workers on the World Cup construction sites became public during the 2022 World Cup in the Gulf state.

Qatar Airways indirectly remains on board with Bayern

The deal with Rwanda is no less controversial. After more than 23 years of rule under President Paul Kagame, the country in the heart of Africa is moving further and further away from any basic democratic principles. Independent journalists and members of the opposition are behind bars or have left the country, and election results of almost 99 percent have become standard. For over a year, Rwanda has been conducting clandestine military operations in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, supporting the Congolese Tutsi rebels of the M23 (March 23 Movement) who have seized large tracts of land along the Rwandan border. In other words: Rwanda is not far removed from the human rights situation in Qatar.

In addition, with the Rwanda deal, FC Bayer is now indirectly getting its ex-partner Qatar Airways on board again. The emirate’s state airline is one of the largest foreign investors in Rwanda, building the new international airport there as well as gigantic hotels and tourist lodges. The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is a close friend of Rwanda’s President Kagame and often travels by private jet over the weekend to visit the gorillas in Rwanda’s rainforests.

The Germans are fourth on the list of foreign visitors to Rwanda’s national parks. Rwanda’s investment authority (RDB) hopes that the advertising deal will soon attract more Germans to vacation there, according to Clare Akamanzi, director of the investment authority. She promises the Rwandans a significant increase in sales through the influx of German tourists: “Germans tend to spend more than the average tourist per day,” she says in an interview with the local Rwandan daily newspaper “New Times”.

According to Akamanzi, the advertising deal is a tool to present Rwanda to the world: “As a country with fascinating tourist attractions, a rapidly growing global economy and a business-friendly environment, not only in Africa but on a global level,” she emphasizes.

Bayern will probably also travel to Rwanda

Historically, Rwanda has had a bad image. As a former colony, the country in the heart of Africa is hardly remembered in Germany. It is best known for its genocide of over a million Tutsi, which almost completely destroyed the country in 1994. Since then, the government under Tutsi President Kagame has been trying to polish the country’s image. The many glass facades of the office towers in the capital, the bike paths, golf courses and chic hotels are intended to give the impression of an up-and-coming country. Recently, German companies have increasingly invested in Rwanda: Volkswagen opened a plant, Biontech invested in vaccine production.

But despite a population of just 13 million, the country suffers from a lack of resources, a high unemployment rate and limited job opportunities for young people. The economy has been on the ground since the global corona pandemic, because the state budget makes a large part of its income from tourists who were not allowed to enter during the Covid 19 lockdowns. This should change again soon with the help of advertising at Bayern Munich.

In its “Vision2040”, the government is focusing on the strategy of establishing the country as a hub for conferences as well as regional and international sports and music events, which are intended to create jobs in the service sector, in addition to the typical safari tourism. For this purpose, the “BK Arena” was opened in 2019, East Africa’s largest event hall with 10,000 seats, right next to the large football stadium with 30,000 seats. In the past few weeks, the African women’s basketball championship was held there, in the evenings, African music stars rocked the arena, and the President celebrated enthusiastically. The FC Bayern stars will soon be arriving there for their training academies. As the stars of Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal have done.