Arsenal’s opening day loss to Brentford sparked many things. Shock. Surprise. Laughter. And to those in a Brentford shirt, vindication for their belief they belong at this level.
It also sparked a series of tweets from Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda. Mr Kagame’s tweets are below and he is highly, highly critical of Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, and the club’s strategy over the last few years:
Politicians getting involved in football talk is always risky. But one thing you can say about Kagame is this; he is a genuine Arsenal supporter.
In fact, he supports Arsenal so much that he has diverted government funds towards the club.
While the previous sentence may be a bit disingenuous, Arsenal unveiled a three-year, £30m deal seeing Visit Rwanda (a tourism campaign by the Rwanda Development Board - a government agency) become their new sleeve sponsors in 2018.
This deal has seen Arsenal staff do what the sleeve suggests and visit Rwanda to provide coaching to locals, and, among other things, the club has produced a promotional feature with David Luiz where he says “I’m going to recommend all my friends to spend their holidays in Rwanda!” (check his Instagram to see if he’s been back…)
Despite Kagame’s Twitter musings, a four-year £40m extension of this deal has reportedly been agreed this week - ensuring at least £70m of government funds will have been diverted to Arsenal in six years.
And this is why Kagame’s Twitter rant matters. He’s not just a fan. He’s not just a prominent world leader. He’s also a sponsor of the club - and when the sponsors are vocally unhappy, that means bad news for Mikel Arteta.
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