Rwanda’s sports fever, a pillar of development or sportswashing?

There is a link between Arsenal, Paris Saint Germain, and Bayern Munich, three of the world’s biggest soccer teams: they all have sponsorship deals with the Rwandan government to promote the small African country as a tourist destination. On players’ shirts and advertising hoardings, the Visit Rwanda logo is highly visible in European stadiums. The same slogan has been appearing everywhere for four years at the Basketball Africa League playoffs (an NBA franchise), which have been held in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, since 2021. Kigali will host the road cycling world championship next year and, in the medium term, aspires to stage a much more ambitious event: if negotiations are successful, the first Formula 1 Grand Prix to take place on African soil since the South African Grand Prix was last held in 1993.

According to the government of President Paul Kagame, in power in Rwanda since 2000, this sporting gold rush is the result of a meticulous plan to encourage investment and attract visitors. The official version speaks of a strategic bet to consolidate the country as an African power in global sport, of an axis of development that, like the emphasis on technology (another pillar of Rwandan prosperity in the long term), will bring wealth and wellbeing to citizens. For Human Rights Watch and other international human rights organizations, however, it is a cosmetic operation: using the glamour of high-level competition to cover up the authoritarian miseries of the regime. Vigorous bodies and dazzling passion to camouflage — or at least make less noticeable — the lack of freedoms. In short, the practice known as sportswashing.

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