A group of Arsenal supporters has opted for a satirical approach in their campaign against the sponsorship agreement of the club with Visit Rwanda.
Gunners for Peace unveiled a 'Visit Tottenham' billboard outside the Emirates Stadium and said that the club's supporters would rather visit their arch rivals than to continue to support the African regime.
For the first time, Arsenal signed a £ 10 million a year shirt sleeve agreement with Visit Rwanda, which is part of the Rwanda Development Board Governmental Body, in 2018, which lasted three seasons, which was expanded in 2021.
In addition to the appearance on the shirt sleeves of Arsenal's men's, women's and youth teams, the Rwanda logo is also on LED boards on match days at the Emirates Stadium and interview backgrounds.
The agreement has traveled various arsenal players from the past and the current trips to Rwanda for sponsored content; The journey of David Luiz in 2019 was particularly memorable, while he stalked a gorilla in the jungle.
Last month, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Government wrote a letter to Arsenal owners Stan and Josh Kroenke in which they asked that they will put an end to the sponsorship agreement 'after an invasion of DRC territory with Rwanda-supported rebel group M23. The invasion of the city of Goma, the home of about as many people as the population of Leeds and Newcastle together, has caused an estimated 3,000 deaths, according to United Nations officials.
As part of the protest, the group will hand out bracelets so that supporters can hide the Rwanda Branding visit on their shirts during the collision of Arsenal against Crystal Palace on Wednesday evening.
Gunners for Peace has also produced a sardonic tourist video for the home base of their bitter rivals Tottenham.
'Arsenal is a great club. We have standards, “the billboard reads outside the Emirates Stadium. “That is why Visit Rwanda must end. This is the same regime that finances a brutal militia with thousands of victims in Eastern Congo. We think that everything – literally everything – would be better than visiting Rwanda. Even Tottenham. '
James Turner of the Gunners for Peace Supporter Group told The Telegraph: “It is difficult to come up with a worse sponsor than to visit Rwanda, and together with many other Arsenal fans we call on the club to drop them.”
Mail Sport understands that the Gunners are investigating more lucrative sponsorship alternatives and are not considering renewing the partnership for a third term. The inheritance of the deal, the commercial reversal situation of Arsenal and the increasing trend of Premier League teams that collaborate with foreign countries ensure a complicated picture.