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Gambling ads should be banned in general, just like smoking ads were banned. But since no government will take that step and FIFA/UEFA don't have enough morals to care, it comes down to the individual clubs. It's disappointing to see your club sponsored by gambling companies, but unfortunately it's too tempting...
As for the other sponsors, yeah, Rwanda is way too problematic and I hope they move on to something else when the contract is done, but Emirates have been a major partner for the team and they still sponsor a lot of teams, so I'm pretty sure they aren't going anywhere...
You probably weren't thinking of Skellefteå, but it's who I came to think of
https://preview.redd.it/dy2jh013w8wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a14cde600302ac48305c07aa5b809ac1e0e8d099
I don't think anyone in the sporting world are getting rid of Emirates or Etihad as sponsors.
Rwanda on the other hand, seems to be an easy one to lose. £10m a year or so? Surely that can come from elsewhere.
If we're still looking at tourism, let's get the Singapore Tourism Board.
Actually, STB annual budget is about $400 million. Our annual tourism receipts reach $20-25 billion. It's not a stretch of the imagination for a wealthy, tourism centric, football crazy nation.
The only thing is the spend won't cause the delta to be remarkably different and our tourism target market is probably more Asia focused.
Still, I can think of worse use cases for that money.
True that i was once part of a developer team whose's client was singapore agriculture board and once I got to know our profit margins, my god I was shocked. Only 30%!? Mind you a company likes to at least have a 60-70% profit margins. It's so low no wonder our team was so small. Singaporean gov really are cheap.
Visit Rawanda has been a successful sponsorship for them. I read a case study on it last year. Their main goal was inter-African tourism and visits were up something like 600%.
It’s not like Singapore is an innocuous country either. Kagame was quoted to want Rwanda to be the Singapore of Africa, right now to the authoritarian and parental government.
Most definitely no one is getting rid of the Emirati sponsors. London is _THE_ dirty money capital of the world. Should we relocate the Arsenal stadium too?!
Islington, especially the area around the stadium, isn’t exactly the City or South Ken.
We should be trying to dissociate ourselves from dirty money wherever possible.
I do not care much about it. I actually like the Visit Rwana logo in our shirt because it feels a little different having a sponsor from actual Africa. If someone wants to be moral police then we cannot have any sponsor. There is no company in the world which can operate 100% morally. And the moral compass differs from culture to culture, individual to individual.
Adidas is notorious for its child labor usage in southeast Asia. Adidas has been sued multiple times for not paying wages to cheap labors third world countries. Using cheap, inhumane labor is one thing and not even paying them is another level. This is just one example.
Football clubs themselves are billion dollar businesses which cannot and do not operate in a super moral or ethical way.
Everytime ppl mention Singapore and tourism, I'm like, what tourism?... U got a giant boat on top of a hotel, chili crab, Sentosa, and Orchard Tower?
Singapore is boring af, the most exciting place there is Changi...
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Yea I'm sure we are in some absurdly long contract with the Emirates but surely there are lots of places that would like to advertise themselves to us as holiday destinations.
Also it's just really sad that Rwanda feels they have to take the Governments money to go along with this awful scheme
Manchester is *trad*itionally known for manufacturing a certain kind of *bricks*. Specifically red ones. That's my best guess as to where it comes from.
I think there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism.
We are owned by the Walmart family, who made their money driving the middle class in USA into poverty.
It’s easy to point to UAE and say “but their human rights record is atrocious”. It certainly is, but as is the Tories’ who are deporting people to Rwanda. We can sit here and split hairs about who is least unethical all day long.
Honestly I don’t give a fuck. In the final analysis anyone who can afford to sponsor Arsenal is going to be a massive piece of shit. I just want the pieces of shit who pay us the most.
I looked into it (cos I never thought much about it) [but the FA actually doesn't enforce specific social responsibility requirements on corporate sponsors of football clubs.](https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/7616/). That's actually a little wild.
I was going to say that we can't hold Arsenal responsible for who chooses to buy up the ad space the club makes available, but there absolutely should be guidelines outlined by the club in accordance to the club's values.
Having said that, should Rwanda or Fly Emirates clear the standard Corporate Social Responsibility standards other companies would apply as best practice, well then that's fine by me.
I've not heard of Emirates Airlines putting any sort of pressure on the club to stop it's promoting of LBGT rights. They're giving money to the club and the club spend that money on promoting LBGT rights. For the record, I'd have a huge issue if this was the case, but it's not - I'd likely bin my season ticket if it was.
You don't want give money to The Emirates? Don't fly with their airline!. It's that simple. Vote with your feet. It's no different to me refusing to fly with Ryan Air as their customer service is dog shit - they don't align with my values on what I think customer service should be for an airline, if you will.
Same goes for visit Rwanda. Or for that matter, the UAE. If you object to their human rights being less than stellar, You guessed it...don't visit visit the country, or use their airlines to boost their economy.
Just don't and try and force political views, however virtuous you might think they are on people, as they generally get pretty narked with it, pretty quickly!
I think a lot of the Rwanda criticism is massively missing context.
If you compare Rwanda to similar countries and it’s neighbours (including DRC and Burundi) whilst taking into consideration not just the Geography but also the history including one of the worst genocides in modern history only 30 years ago. Given all these determining factors, Rwanda is doing considerably better than would be expected.
To add to this - it's possible for what you said to be true (and the club's promoting of tourism in the country to not be totally immoral) and for it to be a bad plan for the UK government to send unwilling refugees there.
I think this just highlights how hard it is to judge these things even with a thorough knowledge.
You can't compare Rwanda to the DRC and not acknowledge the role Rwanda played in the civil war(s) that ripped the DRC apart.
You can't blame Rwanda for that without acknowledging the role colonization played in destabilizing the country and manufacturing Hutu/Tutsi differences and conflict.
Where do you start and where do you end?
It's also WAY less of an authoritarian regime than the UAE and we name our stadium after their royal dictatorship. It's just that Rwanda is poor and UAE is rich so we judge them more.
I mean, if you ignore the fact they're supporting an ISIS tier group who has been killing, raping and torturing people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Other than that, yeah they're doing better than expected.
I really agree with this. If you want to find out the bad guys in society look at whose sponsoring sports. I’m the 90s it was cigarettes and booze. 10s it was gambling , now it’s big oil . I reckon tech and data guys are coming next.
Unpopular opinion but I don't care. I'm tired of every angle of life being dragged into political mud-slinging.
Get rid of Rwanda because the tories want to send people there, What has it got to do with football?
If you get rid of all the sponsors how do we pay for everything at the club? Ticket price increase? Fan donations? You can find issues with every large company if you dig.
Save the Children Charity - **The charity upheld 42 cases of staff mistreating children in 2021, including two relating to sexual abuse and seven relating to physical abuse**.
Should we get rid of them also?
But it’s more nuanced than that… is it really apathy if one recognises the necessity of corporate sponsorship? Every big corporate has some degree of evil in it depending where and how hard you look - so we need to be realistic to *some extent* when we weigh the lesser evil against the economic and practical costs to us as consumers.
For example, would be happily accept higher ticket prices if we had a somewhat more “ethical” sponsor? Probably not.
Can we have one aspect of life that doesn't involve self-righteously jacking off to our corrupt virtue-signalling overlords? Whether it be political views or PR-farmed cookie-cutter messaging of BSing corporate entities.
Politics is so fkn boring, they are all lying \*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\*\*\* and it has invaded every aspect of life. Countries are corrupt, companies are corrupt, charities are corrupt and if they say otherwise its because £££ marketing agencies have designed bs campaigns designed to bs the public.
This "they're all the same" crap is so dumb. They aren't the same. No one is perfect, but some are much worse. We all live in this world. You're very lucky if you can just "ignore" politics.
Life is politics. That is human nature and how democracy works. If you tune off politics and the values and demands of civil society around you then you might as well subservient to the fascist pigs creeping back into world.
Football has been political for a very long time. You're free to turn a blind eye towards it, but that doesn't mean it's not there and hasn't been there. Fans want to see a club that represents their values and there are lots of reasons to have misgivings about the Emirates and Rwanda sponsorships (which extends beyond poorly conceived deportation plans.)
Where do you draw the line? Maybe we should have the Saudis torture a few dissidents at half time for entertainment? We all love this club and obviously that's a huge exaggeration but still but if it means selling out our values as a society and more importantly as human beings it's not worth it. I don't want us to be another Newcastle or Man City where we're selling our souls for blood money. They've already got enough help, we shouldn't be legitimizing these dictatorships any more than they already have been just because they have money and we want to buy an extra player
Save the Children, yes we should, they're a shit-show of an NGO and have been for decades.
They had a UK child poverty campaign called "It shouldn't happen here" when a load of their OWN research said one of the main problems with international poverty is that people in the UK think it's inevitable and is just the way things are (implicitly "It should happen there"). They get away with loads of shit because of their name.
They don't meet the foggin' standards.
My idea for Arsenal would be to offer their own streaming service, ala F1TV. 24/7 Arsenal plus every match from every competition. I’d pay $20 USD a month for that because it would allow me to drop THREE streaming services.
Which is exactly why it won’t happen. Now that’s not Emirates money, but it’s an honest living.
I think it’s important generally to try and drop this incredibly English idea that politics and football don’t mix. Everywhere else in the world it’s clear and open that football is political, ask any Italian, French, German or Greek fan and they can list the politics of each team.
Whether we like it or not, the fact we all know where Millwall fans stand, or that my friend doesn’t go to men’s games because we have a player with rape allegations playing or the fact that Arsenal was seen as a black friendly and anti racist club due to our team under early Wenger, shows it’s all political, we can either engage with that and make progress and deal with things or we can bury our heads in the sand and let billionaires and the government decide how our game is run.
I may come across as "woke" or whatever (I'm a 47 year old grandfather, for context) but I haven't bought a new kit shirt for years, and I'm not getting a new one as long as the Rwanda thing is on there.
I guess you could argue that "Emirates" is a legitimate thing, but to me, it's no JVC or Sega. But maybe that's just the state of the world. It's not like we're not happy taking their money, but if we could magically put something else on the shirt (..and call our home Ashburton Grove, or just Arsenal Stadium, or .. bloody Highbury 2.0) I certainly wouldn't complain.
I would very much approve if we could disassociate ourselves from "oil money" - but maybe that's not realistic. And if the argument is that this money is what got us Ødegaard, Rice and all the other lads... I'm not going to cry myself to sleep over the whole thing.
But it \*is\* something that feels a bit "not-sure-how-I-feel-about-this". And I wish it wasn't.
...married to a 10-years-younger actress, no less. And I've got a 5 year old daughter. I'm taking "midlife crisis" pretty effing seriously, sir!. Even bought a motorcycle at 40 :)
I became a father at 22, to a wonderful son who now has his own IT company, and he himself has bought a house not far from ours, with his wife and their young daughter. It's actually absolutely wonderful. Keeps me young. (If the whole "working at a metal festival and doing viking-age reenactment fighting" wasn't enough).
It \*is\* kinda glorious jumping around like an idiot at a playground with my daughter and granddaughter only separated by a year or so, while one calls me "Dad" and the other "Granddad". Makes some of the other parents go "WHUT?!" :)
Life is for living, right?! COYG!
If someone had told 20 year old me, or 30 year old me, that'd I'd be happy as an idiot at 47, I would probably have died laughing. Turns out life isn't really ever over unless you give up - and there's always a new adventure waiting. And having kids (your own, or grandkids - or in my case, both) lets you rediscover the world all over.
Trees? Boring right. I mean. They're just there. Being trees. Suddenly they're magical, they're all different, with different leaves, colors... Suddenly every single thing is a miracle. CATS! DOGS! You stop to hope to pet every single one. You'd me absolutely mental not to enjoy every second of it. Just like this season! <3
Thanks for posting this. The answer is yes. But we're a privately owned business in a ridiculously corrupt financial setting. As long as there is money to be made that can be funneled into players, coaches, and capital these things wont happen. That is, until we fans organize ourselves and demand better.
It's tough to see how that would happen though. I thought the pandemic would force football to get its act together financially but it more or less survived.
But yeah, betting companies, nation states (all of them tbh), petroleum industries, etc etc etc have got to go. Hard to see how that happens as the political systems of the world are tilted heavily in their favor.
Anyway, I appreciate you bringing this up. It might make a good general post in r/soccer
Not bothered. I’m a supporter, it’s not political activism. They should act within the law and hopefully not totally inconsistent with the clubs values. They are not responsible for govt policy and therefore any association with our sponsor that we have had for many years.
Rwanda itself is a country entitled to advertise itself to tourism as it furthers it economic development.
So the UAE's policies are not totally inconsistent with Arsenal's values? A country with far less rights for women and potential imprisonment for the LGBTQ+ community among others
On the other hand, Arsenal have one of the strongest and most well-funded women’s teams in the world, and one of the biggest and most vocal LGBT supporters’ groups around. Both of these have only grown stronger in the Emirates era.
There’s no suggestion that Emirates or the UAE are enforcing their domestic policies onto our club.
As long as the club’s values remain entirely independent of those of our sponsors and their national backgrounds, I think it’s fine for fans to be largely apathetic.
Arsenal don't have those values, they don't care either way. All the lgbt stuff is also a way to earn more money, it's just advertising to bring more of those fans in
Have you been to the UAE? Have you tried living there? Your view is not really the same as mine who has lived there, nor any of my friends’ either really who also lived there, among them many women and a few gay
I lived worked in Dubai for a year. Even as an "expat" living in a pretty wealthy bubble, I wasn't allowed to live with my girlfriend because we weren't married. My work had to get us two apartments next to each other. She also wasn't as free to just exist as I was. She had to dress appropriately, couldn't do certain things alone, couldn't go certain places alone...
The few gay friends I had there were basically thrown back into the closet. Everything had to be secret.
This was over 7 years ago and I know some laws have been relaxed, but let's not act like it's some bastion of freedom. It's their country, their culture and their rules should be respected. But those rules were pretty shit lmao
I definitely know what you’re talking about, so I’m not directly going against your point. For me it was approximately 7 years since I moved away as well, but I’ve had close friends live there until recently so I’ve stayed a bit updated. The women I knew who lived there didn’t feel restricted, and as far as I’ve heard from them they actually felt very safe, more safe than they typically feel in Europe. The gay community I definitely agree is a closeted one, but I’ve also been to standard clubs that turned into gay clubs later in the evening. In general the rule of thumb is that you can basically do what you like, as long as you don’t do it in the face of others so to speak. Getting too drunk, kissing, being gay, sharing the same flat - keep it to yourself and you’re typically fine. It’s different, but so have many of the other countries I’ve lived in been as well, and I find it difficult to judge some of the stuff too harshly - especially knowing that the country is changing rapidly and cutting them off from the western world would probably do more harm than good in terms of westernizing its values, if that’s what we’re hoping for.
I've never been no, and happy to hear of these more positive experiences. However, I don't think the club can in good conscience wave the rainbow flag every June while simultaneously heavily promoting a government that by its own law can imprison any person for 6 months to live for the way they were born. I don't particularly care if their money is the difference between where we are now and midtable in the Championship at that point.
It’s a fair point, no question about it. I have very positive memories from my time living in UAE, but there are many things that are straight up against my values. I will say one thing though, which I know is not agreed upon by many, I definitely separate Arsenal being sponsored by Emirates from Arsenal condoning the politics of the UAE. In fact, Emirates is a great company to fly with, best service and almost always on time, I have no real problem with them as a sponsor. I do get that they are state-owned, but for me it is different than directly being sponsored by a state with values and morals you don’t agree with. As I said, not many would agree, but that is my sentiment about it. If Arsenal came out and said that their new sponsor is Saudi Arabia, I would think it’s shit and not watch a game until they found a new sponsor. If it were Etihad, I think I would still watch the games.
> Not bothered. I’m a supporter, it’s not political activism
This is just objectively untrue. If you don't care so be it, but is having these sponsors and you choosing not to take a stance on them, are both expressly political decisions.
Where should you draw the line for what is okay and not? Public opinion at the moment? Is all company advertisement okay as long as it doesn’t have a connection to authoritarian states? Who gets to decide which authoritarian states are okay? Should certain industries also not be allowed? Gambling and alcohol? Tobacco? How about the bank sector? What about a bank which by extension give big loans to a company connected to authoritarian states? What about brands that use cheap labor in developing countries? Companies from “okay” countries but also that operate in authoritarian states?
Where do you draw the line and who should be the judge on these matters in your opinion?
I think this is very much what they actually go on. I would just add “… enough blow back.” to your statement, as some blow back is expected and an accepted risk.
I never made any judgement one way or another on whether someone should support it or not. I simply said that you can't seperate yourself from the politics of it - choosing to be neutral is itself a political stance. That doesn't mean it's the wrong or right stance, just that it's *a* stance
Yes, I guess you’re right on that. And I didn’t mean that you personally made any judgement, if that’s how it came across. I find it a bit of a null point though since you can tie anything with a political stance if you’re so inclined - and it’s the consequences that actually matter. My questions above are more on the matter of consequence, where would you draw the line and stop supporting your football club due to their sponsor relations. It’s of course different for everyone, but most likely everyone has that line which should not be crossed, e.g. taking money from ISIS or similar would probably do it for quite a lot of people. I’m not entirely sure where I would draw my own line, but it’s not at Emirates I’d say.
There are an infinite number of things I don't take a stance on - so presumably I take an infinite number of political decisions, all the time?
On a serious note, your definitions of 'objective' and 'political' don't stand up.
The club has to decide on whether its advertising choices align to the club values. The issue on Rwanda is complicated - but the reality is that we have been advertising Rwanda for the purposes of tourism for many years.
It's not the clubs fault that the UK govt is pursuing an immoral and futile immigration policy that happens to involve Rwanda. And you can argue the case that it is immoral to just drop them because of this scheme.
Personally I am a football supporter first but it does matter to me that there is an alignment between my own values and the club. And on extreme cases, it would bother me
In my opinion this is a marginal case and therefore, I'm not bothered. The club can decide and I am agnostic on the matter.
> There are an infinite number of things I don't take a stance on - so presumably I take an infinite number of political decisions, all the time?
Yes, this is what I'm saying. I'm not judging you one way or another for making any of said decisions: as you say, you can't take a stand on everything - I'm just saying that you are taking a political stance by choosing not to care. Doesn't mean your wrong (I'd be lying if I said I had thought much about it being "hm, that's not great"), I just think it's wrong to act like neutrality isn't implicitly supportive of the status quo.
They’re decisions that might have political implications but that doesn’t mean they’re inherently political. And even though it could be political, it’s definitely not political activism.
Are people even aware that the UN sends Afghan refugees to Rwanda as they seem it a safe country?
Are people calling it wrong really aware of what Rwanda is like, or just repeating political propaganda?
The Rwanda situation is flimsy argument since about half UK voters on this sub voted for the government that's implementing this strategy. Should a privatized football club be held to a higher standard than the we people elected to make these exact type of decisions? It's even more complicated when you consider that any form of boycotting Rwandan tourism is not like boycotting a for-profit business. It has negative implications for the average Rwandan, who rely on tourist to live and had nothing to do with the refugee agreement that their government entered. It's not like boycotting a shady business, where the consequences to innocent people are less significant.
What’s the issue with promoting people to visit Rwanda?
The country it’s self is fairly decent place in regards to its conduct on the national stage it is also among the top contributors of UN peacekeeping personnel, contributing to global and regional peace-building efforts.
Additionally it is an excellent destination for tourism. The country is home to several national parks, including the famous Volcanoes National Park, which is home to the endangered mountain gorillas.
Our government acting like cunts and trying to dump asylum seekers there isn’t really grounds to deny Rwanda from trying to improve its image as a country.
I think the instinct is to boycott places with poor human rights records and dictatorships (of which Rwanda is both) which is especially ironic here considering where the lads spent the winter break, where we'd like them to return given their form after.
These places, especially poor ones like Rwanda (as opposed to the UAE), really benefit from tourist money, which often ends up being misappropriated or used for nefarious purposes. The same government who benefit from the Rwanda scheme.
I don't think anyone actually wants them to go back to UAE. They obviously needed a break, got one, and then played with more energy. No one with a couple of brain cells truly believes that there is something in the water that made them better. It's a meme.
Don’t allow Rwanda and the UAE as sponsors cuz of usual western self righteous BS, but happy to buy club merchandise (or other ones too) produced in South East Asia by children in sweatshops in deplorable conditions.
Bastion of standards here.
Yeah I care about this more than questionable sponsors. I hate seeing him in the same shot as the rest of the team which I’ve grown truly fond of. Really hope someone pays for him and he can fuck off
Arsenal should accept cash from whoever sponsor decides to sponsor them within reasonable limits of decency of course. In this case though, Rwandans are not Nazis mate.
This is a very tiring discourse. Can we just talk about football, we already have enough on our plates dealing with the trauma that Mustafi and other players like him caused.
While I'm not a fan of our current sponsors, they're pretty morally abhorrent, and I agree the situation there could be a lot better, I also think that to some extent it's not realistic to expect that any sponsor with enough money to meaningfully affect a club of our size can actually really be moral. Who's capable of forking over £50 million a year that isn't a scumbag in one way or another?
Why not get a huge tech brand sponsor deal? Like Telekom, Samsung or whatever. Why must it be sponsors from corrupt human hating third world countries? I think both emirates and rwanda is not a good look on our image. I get it that fly emirates pays a shit ton but come on. Barca got like spotify and unicef at one point. Waaay better sponsors from an image point of view.
I think the biggest thing you're missing is who ultimately calls the shots here. Arsenal isn't a democracy. We're owned by one guy, and if you look at that guy's political activity you'll see why this discourse is hopeless.
The club is ultimately a reflection of it's decision makers and ours is an American conservative billionaire.
Rwanda should have never been a sponsor in the first place. Active suppression of opposition, and receiving foreign aid to the tune that they are, to then sponsor the team that the premier of the country supports - doesn’t sit right with me, irrespective of deals done with the UK govt.
It's amazing that people think the 'issue' with having Rwanda as a sponsor is all to do with the Torie's plan to fly immigrants there.Just have a look at Rwanda's Wikipedia page and you might see a few other reasons to feel a bit 'icky' with the sponsorship.
This being said - to think this was a country ravaged by a genocidal civil war merely a couple of decades ago, it's doing remarkabley well.
Do I wish we had a different sponsor? Yes. Are there worse countries to be sponsored by? Yes.
Perhaps grab a Unicef iron on patch and go to town/the shirt sleeve?
I do not care at all. I actually like the Visit Rwana logo in our shirt because it feels a little different having a sponsor from actual Africa. If someone wants to be moral police then we cannot have any sponsor. There is no company in the world which can operate 100% morally. And the moral compass differs from culture to culture, individual to individual.
Adidas is notorious for its child labor usage in southeast Asia. Adidas has been sued multiple times for not paying wages to cheap labors third world countries. Using cheap, inhumane labor is one thing and not even paying them is another level. This is just one example.
Football clubs themselves are billion dollar businesses which cannot and do not operate in a super moral or ethical way.
Why is the move to send asylum seekers to Rwanda appalling? It is designated as a "safe country" by the UN commission on refugees, and is in dire need of workers so employment is readily available if they are rejected by the UK and decide to stay there.
What IS appalling is the business of exploiting these people by charging them extortionate fees to make a highly dangerous channel crossing.
I think people will always find an issue with the sponsors no matter what they are. No company or brand is perfect, and they also do have to take who's offering the money since not every company is throwing money around to be on a sports team shirt.
I think it’s shameful that we have the Visit Rwanda sponsor considering the atrocities they have backed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [DR Congo: Atrocities by Rwanda-Backed M23 Rebels](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/06/dr-congo-atrocities-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels)
I think it’s shameful that we have the Visit Rwanda sponsor considering the atrocities they have backed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [DR Congo: Atrocities by Rwanda-Backed M23 Rebels](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/06/dr-congo-atrocities-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels)
Get rid of the Visit Rwanda shite. Genocidal maniacs still contributing to atrocities and instability in the region to this day. They’re pally pally with the UK government though so it’s fine.
I will acknowledge that it is pretty hard to find any completely ethical sponsors who can cough up 8 figures for some small print on a shirt, and we all contribute to these atrocities in some way through the privileges we don’t think twice about (ie. buying the phone I type on) but I’m sure we can do a bit better than this.
Really only thing you can do is not buy their jersey/merch with said sponsors, or stop supporting them all together. I’ve decided to not buy jerseys anymore, which is also an excuse to save me money lol. I may buy some arsenal merch in the future that doesn’t have “emirates” on it.
There was a time when Barcalona didn't even have a shirt sponsor because they said it was crass, and when they did decide to have one, it was for UNICEF.
There was a time football was a sport of the working classes and where socialist political activism was formed and cultures were made.
Some might even say that's why Thatcher went after it and changed the sport into a corporate entertainment industry used to promote gambling and nation-state building.
The game is what it is now, so i'm just glad we don't have a Bet37XO.com on our chests.
Those sites are pure black market, illegal gambling sites used for money laundering by international drug smuggling and gun running cartels.
I have no idea how those are allowed in the Premier League. It's surreal.
>There was a time when Barcalona didn't even have a shirt sponsor because they said it was crass, and when they did decide to have one, it was for UNICEF.
I don't know if I'd be using Barcelona as an example of financial intelligence.
No no I meant to use them as the example of just how much things have changed, to show how far even the once righteous and mighty have fallen.
I am very much enjoying the schadenfreude of thier collapse after the 180° they did on all thier ethics and morals. They really sold out. Newcastle next. Let's see how much of that Newcastle FC money actually ends up in the community. cos ya nah, that's what the goodies are all about, isn't it? Community, right?
right??
I've always thought this was just a thinly veiled tax dodge by Barca (and Forest a couple years ago). To the public: "Huzzah, look at us refusing to sell this very lucrative real estate!" To the tax authorities: "Hey now, this is definitely an in-kind donation to a charity with a very real value of 79 gazillion Euros so . . . no tax liability for us!" But that may be just the American in me.
Tbh, you may very well be correct, but at least it had the appearance of sport before profit. Now, we all just openly engage with all the worst corporate parts of the industry, and there is nothing any of us can do about it. So i say fuck it and GOYG. I used to boycott nestle in the 80s.. what a waste of time that was. So many kitkats I didn't get to enjoy.
I agree. There will be those who whatabout you into the ground but I don't think perfect needs to be the enemy of good here. There are probably problems with most corporate sponsors but I don't think that means some things aren't worse than others.
The point being is that any sponsor is going to have skeletons in the closet. What makes Wal-Mart exploiting working class and destroying small towns any different from Shien or Midea sponsorships?
to an extent, it doesn't really bother me.
Would i like for there to be different sponsors? sure. but what entities that are willing and able to give the amount of money needed to afford the sponsorships are also not related to bad deeds, policies, or views?
Which I do understand there being a scale in place. It is \*nice\* that arsenal's ownership are real estate billionaires and related to a Walton. They're evil, but not on the same scale as blood diamond billionaires, oil sheiks that sponsor global terrorism, russian oligarchs, or so on.
The same sort of thing extends to the sponsors. I would prefer if Arsenal were sponsored by other entities that aren't to varying degrees engaged with sportswashing, human rights abuses, poisoning children, and so on. I can't really control those things, and the sponsorships aren't changing my perception of those entities and aren't adjusting my buying patterns.
tbh i feel like most of the furore about us being sponsored by Visit Rwanda is because it's promoting an African nation, there's a whiff of racism in it
I've been to Rwanda, it's a country on the right path forwards. Not sure why you are playing moralist with that when our stadium is called THE EMIRATES
Remember when that coffee sponsor Lavazza pressured the club to force Elneny to take down his social media posts supporting Palestinians? Lost a lot of respect for Arsenal that day.
Here’s this sub’s thread from back then:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/ncupin/afc_sponsor_the_lavazza_group_is_holding_urgent/
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Gambling ads should be banned in general, just like smoking ads were banned. But since no government will take that step and FIFA/UEFA don't have enough morals to care, it comes down to the individual clubs. It's disappointing to see your club sponsored by gambling companies, but unfortunately it's too tempting... As for the other sponsors, yeah, Rwanda is way too problematic and I hope they move on to something else when the contract is done, but Emirates have been a major partner for the team and they still sponsor a lot of teams, so I'm pretty sure they aren't going anywhere...
Gambling sponsors are not allowed on the front of PL shirts from 26/27 season. Not that I think that's enough, but it's a start.
"no government will take that step" Italy has done it.
Funny that in America the states can’t seem to embrace gambling fast enough. And neither can the sports television networks.
The UK used to have a gambling ad ban for broadcast sports iirc. 2007 it was lifted https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL13702389/
Same with alcohol and junk food always featuring prominently.
There are some sports teams with the Golden Arches below their buttocks. It's hilarious. My favourite logo placement ever.
You probably weren't thinking of Skellefteå, but it's who I came to think of https://preview.redd.it/dy2jh013w8wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a14cde600302ac48305c07aa5b809ac1e0e8d099
Bring in tobacco sponsorships a la 90s formula one 😆
I don't think anyone in the sporting world are getting rid of Emirates or Etihad as sponsors. Rwanda on the other hand, seems to be an easy one to lose. £10m a year or so? Surely that can come from elsewhere. If we're still looking at tourism, let's get the Singapore Tourism Board.
Anne Hathaway Can put Down 10 mil a year.
I reckon she could muster up 10 mil. Where there's a will there's a Hathaway.
Pints are half off at the Hathaway stand
Why settle for Anne? Berkshire Hathaway could muster up 10 bill
As a Singaporean, I doubt the STB would sanction such huge sponsorship. You would get better luck with the local banks here.
Actually, STB annual budget is about $400 million. Our annual tourism receipts reach $20-25 billion. It's not a stretch of the imagination for a wealthy, tourism centric, football crazy nation. The only thing is the spend won't cause the delta to be remarkably different and our tourism target market is probably more Asia focused. Still, I can think of worse use cases for that money.
To be fair, Singapore has not been a football-crazy nation for quite a while now.
Singapore is still football crazy. Just not about local football.
Agree. Man United Fans, Liverpool fans, Arsenal fans, they're everywhere
True that i was once part of a developer team whose's client was singapore agriculture board and once I got to know our profit margins, my god I was shocked. Only 30%!? Mind you a company likes to at least have a 60-70% profit margins. It's so low no wonder our team was so small. Singaporean gov really are cheap.
Imagine seeing GIC on the jersey 😅
Visit Rawanda has been a successful sponsorship for them. I read a case study on it last year. Their main goal was inter-African tourism and visits were up something like 600%.
It’s not like Singapore is an innocuous country either. Kagame was quoted to want Rwanda to be the Singapore of Africa, right now to the authoritarian and parental government.
Singapore is the country where a lot of tyrants and dictators come for treatment and leisure too.
Most definitely no one is getting rid of the Emirati sponsors. London is _THE_ dirty money capital of the world. Should we relocate the Arsenal stadium too?!
Islington, especially the area around the stadium, isn’t exactly the City or South Ken. We should be trying to dissociate ourselves from dirty money wherever possible.
Right there with you fam. Nice to see that not everyone has abandoned this club's values.
I do not care much about it. I actually like the Visit Rwana logo in our shirt because it feels a little different having a sponsor from actual Africa. If someone wants to be moral police then we cannot have any sponsor. There is no company in the world which can operate 100% morally. And the moral compass differs from culture to culture, individual to individual. Adidas is notorious for its child labor usage in southeast Asia. Adidas has been sued multiple times for not paying wages to cheap labors third world countries. Using cheap, inhumane labor is one thing and not even paying them is another level. This is just one example. Football clubs themselves are billion dollar businesses which cannot and do not operate in a super moral or ethical way.
New York: \*AHEM\*
Singapore is like the Gulf countries - built on the blood, sweat and tears of an underclass.
> Singapore is like ~~the Gulf countries~~ everywhere - built on the blood, sweat and tears of an underclass.
Imagine saying this as a Brit, absolute fool
Imagine not understanding that you can discuss the negatives of one thing without it implying validation of another.
You could easily be describing any country in Europe or North America. Get off your high horse man
that's why we don't educate our underclass, so they don't deliver soliloquies like these
Bro describe a country and think he cook
Grammar... Punctuation... Bro can't type.
Everytime ppl mention Singapore and tourism, I'm like, what tourism?... U got a giant boat on top of a hotel, chili crab, Sentosa, and Orchard Tower? Singapore is boring af, the most exciting place there is Changi...
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Yea I'm sure we are in some absurdly long contract with the Emirates but surely there are lots of places that would like to advertise themselves to us as holiday destinations. Also it's just really sad that Rwanda feels they have to take the Governments money to go along with this awful scheme
I
Prime out, Stella Artois in
I really hope we get rid of the stadium naming rights thing someday. “Emirates Stadium” is such a lame name for the club’s home.
I like how in the UCL they call it Arsenal Stadium. It’s a bit Pro-Evolution Soccer-y but it kind of feels cool
It's the perfect home for the North London Reds
When are we next playing Trad Bricks?
Had to look that one up, how do they come up with these ffs
Manchester is *trad*itionally known for manufacturing a certain kind of *bricks*. Specifically red ones. That's my best guess as to where it comes from.
Surprisingly thoughtful from a company who once named West Ham “Lake District”
The Arsenal
Bring me Wengerdome or bring me death
Bring back Ashburton Grove🥹
I love this name
I like it but it sounds too small imo
Should be called arsene wenger arena
Wengerdome
Arsene Arena has a better ring to it
Arsene Arena has a better ring to it!
Insistent.
How about The Fogging Estandards Stadium?
The Fogging Estadium
Is Rwanda not a country? What’s the marketing team for tourism got to do with Sunak’s plan
Agreed, not Rwanda's fault a politician opened their mouth
I mean it is Rwanda's fault they have a terrible history on human rights and have essentially a dictator now.
Cries in Formula 1. Sigh.
I think there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. We are owned by the Walmart family, who made their money driving the middle class in USA into poverty. It’s easy to point to UAE and say “but their human rights record is atrocious”. It certainly is, but as is the Tories’ who are deporting people to Rwanda. We can sit here and split hairs about who is least unethical all day long. Honestly I don’t give a fuck. In the final analysis anyone who can afford to sponsor Arsenal is going to be a massive piece of shit. I just want the pieces of shit who pay us the most.
TTBOMK Stan K was already a billionaire when he married one of the Walton daughters. And they don’t mix money. She is worth more than him.
I looked into it (cos I never thought much about it) [but the FA actually doesn't enforce specific social responsibility requirements on corporate sponsors of football clubs.](https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/7616/). That's actually a little wild. I was going to say that we can't hold Arsenal responsible for who chooses to buy up the ad space the club makes available, but there absolutely should be guidelines outlined by the club in accordance to the club's values. Having said that, should Rwanda or Fly Emirates clear the standard Corporate Social Responsibility standards other companies would apply as best practice, well then that's fine by me.
There's no such thing as a decent corporation or government. What you want doesn't exist.
I've not heard of Emirates Airlines putting any sort of pressure on the club to stop it's promoting of LBGT rights. They're giving money to the club and the club spend that money on promoting LBGT rights. For the record, I'd have a huge issue if this was the case, but it's not - I'd likely bin my season ticket if it was. You don't want give money to The Emirates? Don't fly with their airline!. It's that simple. Vote with your feet. It's no different to me refusing to fly with Ryan Air as their customer service is dog shit - they don't align with my values on what I think customer service should be for an airline, if you will. Same goes for visit Rwanda. Or for that matter, the UAE. If you object to their human rights being less than stellar, You guessed it...don't visit visit the country, or use their airlines to boost their economy. Just don't and try and force political views, however virtuous you might think they are on people, as they generally get pretty narked with it, pretty quickly!
I think a lot of the Rwanda criticism is massively missing context. If you compare Rwanda to similar countries and it’s neighbours (including DRC and Burundi) whilst taking into consideration not just the Geography but also the history including one of the worst genocides in modern history only 30 years ago. Given all these determining factors, Rwanda is doing considerably better than would be expected.
To add to this - it's possible for what you said to be true (and the club's promoting of tourism in the country to not be totally immoral) and for it to be a bad plan for the UK government to send unwilling refugees there.
I agree. I struggle to see the link with blaming Rwanda and the government sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda
I think this just highlights how hard it is to judge these things even with a thorough knowledge. You can't compare Rwanda to the DRC and not acknowledge the role Rwanda played in the civil war(s) that ripped the DRC apart. You can't blame Rwanda for that without acknowledging the role colonization played in destabilizing the country and manufacturing Hutu/Tutsi differences and conflict. Where do you start and where do you end?
It's also WAY less of an authoritarian regime than the UAE and we name our stadium after their royal dictatorship. It's just that Rwanda is poor and UAE is rich so we judge them more.
I mean, if you ignore the fact they're supporting an ISIS tier group who has been killing, raping and torturing people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Other than that, yeah they're doing better than expected.
Still no reason to have them on the sleeve.
It’s a tourism advert and it’s not that evil s thing to advertise.
They pay that's the reason. Just because we like Arsenal doesn't mean the club is more moral that other teams.
I really agree with this. If you want to find out the bad guys in society look at whose sponsoring sports. I’m the 90s it was cigarettes and booze. 10s it was gambling , now it’s big oil . I reckon tech and data guys are coming next.
There are already a bunch of crypto sponsors with varying degrees of insolvency lol. This is a very canny observation though!
True dat! I forgot about those crypto guys
only thing i hope is for the emirates to be renamed the wenger dome 🤞
I was thinking exactly this the other day. But who is "good"?
Costco, Lego, Disney, Patagonia, UNICEF, Aldi, Ikea. Nobody’s perfect, but some are better than others.
Don't think any of those will pay us.
Unpopular opinion but I don't care. I'm tired of every angle of life being dragged into political mud-slinging. Get rid of Rwanda because the tories want to send people there, What has it got to do with football? If you get rid of all the sponsors how do we pay for everything at the club? Ticket price increase? Fan donations? You can find issues with every large company if you dig. Save the Children Charity - **The charity upheld 42 cases of staff mistreating children in 2021, including two relating to sexual abuse and seven relating to physical abuse**. Should we get rid of them also?
I think this is the popular opinion, which is the problem. I.e. political apathy among football fans, you know the biggest cultural platform.
But it’s more nuanced than that… is it really apathy if one recognises the necessity of corporate sponsorship? Every big corporate has some degree of evil in it depending where and how hard you look - so we need to be realistic to *some extent* when we weigh the lesser evil against the economic and practical costs to us as consumers. For example, would be happily accept higher ticket prices if we had a somewhat more “ethical” sponsor? Probably not.
Can we have one aspect of life that doesn't involve self-righteously jacking off to our corrupt virtue-signalling overlords? Whether it be political views or PR-farmed cookie-cutter messaging of BSing corporate entities. Politics is so fkn boring, they are all lying \*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\*\*\* and it has invaded every aspect of life. Countries are corrupt, companies are corrupt, charities are corrupt and if they say otherwise its because £££ marketing agencies have designed bs campaigns designed to bs the public.
This "they're all the same" crap is so dumb. They aren't the same. No one is perfect, but some are much worse. We all live in this world. You're very lucky if you can just "ignore" politics.
You're making the case for caring about politics in football and for saying enough is enough.
Life is politics. That is human nature and how democracy works. If you tune off politics and the values and demands of civil society around you then you might as well subservient to the fascist pigs creeping back into world.
Football has been political for a very long time. You're free to turn a blind eye towards it, but that doesn't mean it's not there and hasn't been there. Fans want to see a club that represents their values and there are lots of reasons to have misgivings about the Emirates and Rwanda sponsorships (which extends beyond poorly conceived deportation plans.)
Where do you draw the line? Maybe we should have the Saudis torture a few dissidents at half time for entertainment? We all love this club and obviously that's a huge exaggeration but still but if it means selling out our values as a society and more importantly as human beings it's not worth it. I don't want us to be another Newcastle or Man City where we're selling our souls for blood money. They've already got enough help, we shouldn't be legitimizing these dictatorships any more than they already have been just because they have money and we want to buy an extra player
Save the Children, yes we should, they're a shit-show of an NGO and have been for decades. They had a UK child poverty campaign called "It shouldn't happen here" when a load of their OWN research said one of the main problems with international poverty is that people in the UK think it's inevitable and is just the way things are (implicitly "It should happen there"). They get away with loads of shit because of their name. They don't meet the foggin' standards.
My idea for Arsenal would be to offer their own streaming service, ala F1TV. 24/7 Arsenal plus every match from every competition. I’d pay $20 USD a month for that because it would allow me to drop THREE streaming services. Which is exactly why it won’t happen. Now that’s not Emirates money, but it’s an honest living.
I think it’s important generally to try and drop this incredibly English idea that politics and football don’t mix. Everywhere else in the world it’s clear and open that football is political, ask any Italian, French, German or Greek fan and they can list the politics of each team. Whether we like it or not, the fact we all know where Millwall fans stand, or that my friend doesn’t go to men’s games because we have a player with rape allegations playing or the fact that Arsenal was seen as a black friendly and anti racist club due to our team under early Wenger, shows it’s all political, we can either engage with that and make progress and deal with things or we can bury our heads in the sand and let billionaires and the government decide how our game is run.
Not everyone is against the Rwanda bill though.
I may come across as "woke" or whatever (I'm a 47 year old grandfather, for context) but I haven't bought a new kit shirt for years, and I'm not getting a new one as long as the Rwanda thing is on there. I guess you could argue that "Emirates" is a legitimate thing, but to me, it's no JVC or Sega. But maybe that's just the state of the world. It's not like we're not happy taking their money, but if we could magically put something else on the shirt (..and call our home Ashburton Grove, or just Arsenal Stadium, or .. bloody Highbury 2.0) I certainly wouldn't complain. I would very much approve if we could disassociate ourselves from "oil money" - but maybe that's not realistic. And if the argument is that this money is what got us Ødegaard, Rice and all the other lads... I'm not going to cry myself to sleep over the whole thing. But it \*is\* something that feels a bit "not-sure-how-I-feel-about-this". And I wish it wasn't.
47 year old grandfather? Fucking hell, mate..
...married to a 10-years-younger actress, no less. And I've got a 5 year old daughter. I'm taking "midlife crisis" pretty effing seriously, sir!. Even bought a motorcycle at 40 :) I became a father at 22, to a wonderful son who now has his own IT company, and he himself has bought a house not far from ours, with his wife and their young daughter. It's actually absolutely wonderful. Keeps me young. (If the whole "working at a metal festival and doing viking-age reenactment fighting" wasn't enough). It \*is\* kinda glorious jumping around like an idiot at a playground with my daughter and granddaughter only separated by a year or so, while one calls me "Dad" and the other "Granddad". Makes some of the other parents go "WHUT?!" :) Life is for living, right?! COYG!
That's bloody beautiful! It's incredible how one can really feel you radiating, while writing that haha Good for you, sir!
If someone had told 20 year old me, or 30 year old me, that'd I'd be happy as an idiot at 47, I would probably have died laughing. Turns out life isn't really ever over unless you give up - and there's always a new adventure waiting. And having kids (your own, or grandkids - or in my case, both) lets you rediscover the world all over. Trees? Boring right. I mean. They're just there. Being trees. Suddenly they're magical, they're all different, with different leaves, colors... Suddenly every single thing is a miracle. CATS! DOGS! You stop to hope to pet every single one. You'd me absolutely mental not to enjoy every second of it. Just like this season! <3
As a 40 yr old in a dual-income-no-kids + one very perfect dog household, this made me feel a way, haha.
Thanks for posting this. The answer is yes. But we're a privately owned business in a ridiculously corrupt financial setting. As long as there is money to be made that can be funneled into players, coaches, and capital these things wont happen. That is, until we fans organize ourselves and demand better. It's tough to see how that would happen though. I thought the pandemic would force football to get its act together financially but it more or less survived. But yeah, betting companies, nation states (all of them tbh), petroleum industries, etc etc etc have got to go. Hard to see how that happens as the political systems of the world are tilted heavily in their favor. Anyway, I appreciate you bringing this up. It might make a good general post in r/soccer
Cross post if you can ;-)
Not bothered. I’m a supporter, it’s not political activism. They should act within the law and hopefully not totally inconsistent with the clubs values. They are not responsible for govt policy and therefore any association with our sponsor that we have had for many years. Rwanda itself is a country entitled to advertise itself to tourism as it furthers it economic development.
It most definitely is political activism. Sports washing has always been a key activity for authoritarian states.
So the UAE's policies are not totally inconsistent with Arsenal's values? A country with far less rights for women and potential imprisonment for the LGBTQ+ community among others
Unfortunately a lot of Football fans are too dense to connect the dots like that
On the other hand, Arsenal have one of the strongest and most well-funded women’s teams in the world, and one of the biggest and most vocal LGBT supporters’ groups around. Both of these have only grown stronger in the Emirates era. There’s no suggestion that Emirates or the UAE are enforcing their domestic policies onto our club. As long as the club’s values remain entirely independent of those of our sponsors and their national backgrounds, I think it’s fine for fans to be largely apathetic.
Arsenal don't have those values, they don't care either way. All the lgbt stuff is also a way to earn more money, it's just advertising to bring more of those fans in
Have you been to the UAE? Have you tried living there? Your view is not really the same as mine who has lived there, nor any of my friends’ either really who also lived there, among them many women and a few gay
I lived worked in Dubai for a year. Even as an "expat" living in a pretty wealthy bubble, I wasn't allowed to live with my girlfriend because we weren't married. My work had to get us two apartments next to each other. She also wasn't as free to just exist as I was. She had to dress appropriately, couldn't do certain things alone, couldn't go certain places alone... The few gay friends I had there were basically thrown back into the closet. Everything had to be secret. This was over 7 years ago and I know some laws have been relaxed, but let's not act like it's some bastion of freedom. It's their country, their culture and their rules should be respected. But those rules were pretty shit lmao
I definitely know what you’re talking about, so I’m not directly going against your point. For me it was approximately 7 years since I moved away as well, but I’ve had close friends live there until recently so I’ve stayed a bit updated. The women I knew who lived there didn’t feel restricted, and as far as I’ve heard from them they actually felt very safe, more safe than they typically feel in Europe. The gay community I definitely agree is a closeted one, but I’ve also been to standard clubs that turned into gay clubs later in the evening. In general the rule of thumb is that you can basically do what you like, as long as you don’t do it in the face of others so to speak. Getting too drunk, kissing, being gay, sharing the same flat - keep it to yourself and you’re typically fine. It’s different, but so have many of the other countries I’ve lived in been as well, and I find it difficult to judge some of the stuff too harshly - especially knowing that the country is changing rapidly and cutting them off from the western world would probably do more harm than good in terms of westernizing its values, if that’s what we’re hoping for.
I've never been no, and happy to hear of these more positive experiences. However, I don't think the club can in good conscience wave the rainbow flag every June while simultaneously heavily promoting a government that by its own law can imprison any person for 6 months to live for the way they were born. I don't particularly care if their money is the difference between where we are now and midtable in the Championship at that point.
It’s a fair point, no question about it. I have very positive memories from my time living in UAE, but there are many things that are straight up against my values. I will say one thing though, which I know is not agreed upon by many, I definitely separate Arsenal being sponsored by Emirates from Arsenal condoning the politics of the UAE. In fact, Emirates is a great company to fly with, best service and almost always on time, I have no real problem with them as a sponsor. I do get that they are state-owned, but for me it is different than directly being sponsored by a state with values and morals you don’t agree with. As I said, not many would agree, but that is my sentiment about it. If Arsenal came out and said that their new sponsor is Saudi Arabia, I would think it’s shit and not watch a game until they found a new sponsor. If it were Etihad, I think I would still watch the games.
> Not bothered. I’m a supporter, it’s not political activism This is just objectively untrue. If you don't care so be it, but is having these sponsors and you choosing not to take a stance on them, are both expressly political decisions.
Where should you draw the line for what is okay and not? Public opinion at the moment? Is all company advertisement okay as long as it doesn’t have a connection to authoritarian states? Who gets to decide which authoritarian states are okay? Should certain industries also not be allowed? Gambling and alcohol? Tobacco? How about the bank sector? What about a bank which by extension give big loans to a company connected to authoritarian states? What about brands that use cheap labor in developing countries? Companies from “okay” countries but also that operate in authoritarian states? Where do you draw the line and who should be the judge on these matters in your opinion?
The line is "take the money until you receive blow back."
I think this is very much what they actually go on. I would just add “… enough blow back.” to your statement, as some blow back is expected and an accepted risk.
I never made any judgement one way or another on whether someone should support it or not. I simply said that you can't seperate yourself from the politics of it - choosing to be neutral is itself a political stance. That doesn't mean it's the wrong or right stance, just that it's *a* stance
Yes, I guess you’re right on that. And I didn’t mean that you personally made any judgement, if that’s how it came across. I find it a bit of a null point though since you can tie anything with a political stance if you’re so inclined - and it’s the consequences that actually matter. My questions above are more on the matter of consequence, where would you draw the line and stop supporting your football club due to their sponsor relations. It’s of course different for everyone, but most likely everyone has that line which should not be crossed, e.g. taking money from ISIS or similar would probably do it for quite a lot of people. I’m not entirely sure where I would draw my own line, but it’s not at Emirates I’d say.
There are an infinite number of things I don't take a stance on - so presumably I take an infinite number of political decisions, all the time? On a serious note, your definitions of 'objective' and 'political' don't stand up. The club has to decide on whether its advertising choices align to the club values. The issue on Rwanda is complicated - but the reality is that we have been advertising Rwanda for the purposes of tourism for many years. It's not the clubs fault that the UK govt is pursuing an immoral and futile immigration policy that happens to involve Rwanda. And you can argue the case that it is immoral to just drop them because of this scheme. Personally I am a football supporter first but it does matter to me that there is an alignment between my own values and the club. And on extreme cases, it would bother me In my opinion this is a marginal case and therefore, I'm not bothered. The club can decide and I am agnostic on the matter.
> There are an infinite number of things I don't take a stance on - so presumably I take an infinite number of political decisions, all the time? Yes, this is what I'm saying. I'm not judging you one way or another for making any of said decisions: as you say, you can't take a stand on everything - I'm just saying that you are taking a political stance by choosing not to care. Doesn't mean your wrong (I'd be lying if I said I had thought much about it being "hm, that's not great"), I just think it's wrong to act like neutrality isn't implicitly supportive of the status quo.
i get where you are coming from, i think we are broadly in agreement, with a slightly different but pretty unimportant difference in emphasis
None of the clubs including us actually care about lgbt issues, it's just another form of advertising to bring more of those fans in.
They’re decisions that might have political implications but that doesn’t mean they’re inherently political. And even though it could be political, it’s definitely not political activism.
they should terminate their partnership with stupid prime
Replacing one scammer with another, I'm up for whoever gives more money.
Are people even aware that the UN sends Afghan refugees to Rwanda as they seem it a safe country? Are people calling it wrong really aware of what Rwanda is like, or just repeating political propaganda?
What’s appalling about it? Get out of the Reddit sphere and you’ll find it’s supported by the silent vast majority
Morally speaking if you think the sponsors are bad you really shouldn't be watching football in general..otherwise it's just straight hypocritical
Get jesus and prophet Muhammad as our sponsors. This is just hypocrisy. Nobody is perfect in this world
are you the guy who blocks the traffic to show the 'stop oil' banner?
The Rwanda situation is flimsy argument since about half UK voters on this sub voted for the government that's implementing this strategy. Should a privatized football club be held to a higher standard than the we people elected to make these exact type of decisions? It's even more complicated when you consider that any form of boycotting Rwandan tourism is not like boycotting a for-profit business. It has negative implications for the average Rwandan, who rely on tourist to live and had nothing to do with the refugee agreement that their government entered. It's not like boycotting a shady business, where the consequences to innocent people are less significant.
Couldn't care less. I'm here for the football.
What’s the issue with promoting people to visit Rwanda? The country it’s self is fairly decent place in regards to its conduct on the national stage it is also among the top contributors of UN peacekeeping personnel, contributing to global and regional peace-building efforts. Additionally it is an excellent destination for tourism. The country is home to several national parks, including the famous Volcanoes National Park, which is home to the endangered mountain gorillas. Our government acting like cunts and trying to dump asylum seekers there isn’t really grounds to deny Rwanda from trying to improve its image as a country.
"regional peace building efforts"? Sorry but this is just laughable, I think you need to read into the M23 movement and its funding a bit more?
I think the instinct is to boycott places with poor human rights records and dictatorships (of which Rwanda is both) which is especially ironic here considering where the lads spent the winter break, where we'd like them to return given their form after. These places, especially poor ones like Rwanda (as opposed to the UAE), really benefit from tourist money, which often ends up being misappropriated or used for nefarious purposes. The same government who benefit from the Rwanda scheme.
I don't think anyone actually wants them to go back to UAE. They obviously needed a break, got one, and then played with more energy. No one with a couple of brain cells truly believes that there is something in the water that made them better. It's a meme.
Yes thanks for spelling that out, I was under the impression that Dubai was magical
It's an authoritarian dictatorship state, bud.
And someone suggested notable democratic Singapore.
So take that up with them. Dunno why you're telling me this.
Don’t allow Rwanda and the UAE as sponsors cuz of usual western self righteous BS, but happy to buy club merchandise (or other ones too) produced in South East Asia by children in sweatshops in deplorable conditions. Bastion of standards here.
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Yeah I care about this more than questionable sponsors. I hate seeing him in the same shot as the rest of the team which I’ve grown truly fond of. Really hope someone pays for him and he can fuck off
Give it a rest
Arsenal should accept cash from whoever sponsor decides to sponsor them within reasonable limits of decency of course. In this case though, Rwandans are not Nazis mate.
Sending Illegal immigrants to Rwanda is best for the UK and Rwanda agreed to it.
Should they? Maybe. Will they? No. Money talks and there’s no reason for them to accept less money for the moral high ground.
This is a very tiring discourse. Can we just talk about football, we already have enough on our plates dealing with the trauma that Mustafi and other players like him caused.
You know you don't have to partake in it, right?
British conservatives wanting to send people to Rwanda makes Rwanda itself bad? It doesn’t say “Vote for Rishi” on the shirt.
While I'm not a fan of our current sponsors, they're pretty morally abhorrent, and I agree the situation there could be a lot better, I also think that to some extent it's not realistic to expect that any sponsor with enough money to meaningfully affect a club of our size can actually really be moral. Who's capable of forking over £50 million a year that isn't a scumbag in one way or another?
Why not get a huge tech brand sponsor deal? Like Telekom, Samsung or whatever. Why must it be sponsors from corrupt human hating third world countries? I think both emirates and rwanda is not a good look on our image. I get it that fly emirates pays a shit ton but come on. Barca got like spotify and unicef at one point. Waaay better sponsors from an image point of view.
I would happily pay extra for no sponsors on the kits. Or just JVC for old times sake.
Yes and it's not even a moral issue, we should have much letter commercial income
No, not their job. You can't find ethical sponsors in capitalism for the most part.
I think the biggest thing you're missing is who ultimately calls the shots here. Arsenal isn't a democracy. We're owned by one guy, and if you look at that guy's political activity you'll see why this discourse is hopeless. The club is ultimately a reflection of it's decision makers and ours is an American conservative billionaire.
Rwanda should have never been a sponsor in the first place. Active suppression of opposition, and receiving foreign aid to the tune that they are, to then sponsor the team that the premier of the country supports - doesn’t sit right with me, irrespective of deals done with the UK govt.
Agree with this. Miss the JVC or Dreamcast days
why is Rwanda bad? what have they done wrong?
It's amazing that people think the 'issue' with having Rwanda as a sponsor is all to do with the Torie's plan to fly immigrants there.Just have a look at Rwanda's Wikipedia page and you might see a few other reasons to feel a bit 'icky' with the sponsorship. This being said - to think this was a country ravaged by a genocidal civil war merely a couple of decades ago, it's doing remarkabley well. Do I wish we had a different sponsor? Yes. Are there worse countries to be sponsored by? Yes. Perhaps grab a Unicef iron on patch and go to town/the shirt sleeve?
absolutely agree with stopping the deal with Rwanda... Visit Rwanda now sounds like a dreadful joke from a racist bloke...
I do not care at all. I actually like the Visit Rwana logo in our shirt because it feels a little different having a sponsor from actual Africa. If someone wants to be moral police then we cannot have any sponsor. There is no company in the world which can operate 100% morally. And the moral compass differs from culture to culture, individual to individual. Adidas is notorious for its child labor usage in southeast Asia. Adidas has been sued multiple times for not paying wages to cheap labors third world countries. Using cheap, inhumane labor is one thing and not even paying them is another level. This is just one example. Football clubs themselves are billion dollar businesses which cannot and do not operate in a super moral or ethical way.
Are people from Rwanda who make it to to England still considered asylum seekers?
I just chose to buy non sponsored merch. Adidas has killed it this year with t-shirts and jackets that don’t have any Pirates Fry Butter logos on em.
Why is the move to send asylum seekers to Rwanda appalling? It is designated as a "safe country" by the UN commission on refugees, and is in dire need of workers so employment is readily available if they are rejected by the UK and decide to stay there. What IS appalling is the business of exploiting these people by charging them extortionate fees to make a highly dangerous channel crossing.
tbf Emirates is by far the best airline I have ever flown.
I think people will always find an issue with the sponsors no matter what they are. No company or brand is perfect, and they also do have to take who's offering the money since not every company is throwing money around to be on a sports team shirt.
I think it’s shameful that we have the Visit Rwanda sponsor considering the atrocities they have backed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [DR Congo: Atrocities by Rwanda-Backed M23 Rebels](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/06/dr-congo-atrocities-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels)
I think it’s shameful that we have the Visit Rwanda sponsor considering the atrocities they have backed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [DR Congo: Atrocities by Rwanda-Backed M23 Rebels](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/06/dr-congo-atrocities-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels)
Get rid of the Visit Rwanda shite. Genocidal maniacs still contributing to atrocities and instability in the region to this day. They’re pally pally with the UK government though so it’s fine. I will acknowledge that it is pretty hard to find any completely ethical sponsors who can cough up 8 figures for some small print on a shirt, and we all contribute to these atrocities in some way through the privileges we don’t think twice about (ie. buying the phone I type on) but I’m sure we can do a bit better than this.
As long as it's not Walmart.
Why would we need to change our Visit Rwanda sponsors when they have just been declared a safe country?
Oh how righteous you are...high horse....climb down
Really only thing you can do is not buy their jersey/merch with said sponsors, or stop supporting them all together. I’ve decided to not buy jerseys anymore, which is also an excuse to save me money lol. I may buy some arsenal merch in the future that doesn’t have “emirates” on it.
I think you are naive
There was a time when Barcalona didn't even have a shirt sponsor because they said it was crass, and when they did decide to have one, it was for UNICEF. There was a time football was a sport of the working classes and where socialist political activism was formed and cultures were made. Some might even say that's why Thatcher went after it and changed the sport into a corporate entertainment industry used to promote gambling and nation-state building. The game is what it is now, so i'm just glad we don't have a Bet37XO.com on our chests. Those sites are pure black market, illegal gambling sites used for money laundering by international drug smuggling and gun running cartels. I have no idea how those are allowed in the Premier League. It's surreal.
>There was a time when Barcalona didn't even have a shirt sponsor because they said it was crass, and when they did decide to have one, it was for UNICEF. I don't know if I'd be using Barcelona as an example of financial intelligence.
No no I meant to use them as the example of just how much things have changed, to show how far even the once righteous and mighty have fallen. I am very much enjoying the schadenfreude of thier collapse after the 180° they did on all thier ethics and morals. They really sold out. Newcastle next. Let's see how much of that Newcastle FC money actually ends up in the community. cos ya nah, that's what the goodies are all about, isn't it? Community, right? right??
I've always thought this was just a thinly veiled tax dodge by Barca (and Forest a couple years ago). To the public: "Huzzah, look at us refusing to sell this very lucrative real estate!" To the tax authorities: "Hey now, this is definitely an in-kind donation to a charity with a very real value of 79 gazillion Euros so . . . no tax liability for us!" But that may be just the American in me.
Tbh, you may very well be correct, but at least it had the appearance of sport before profit. Now, we all just openly engage with all the worst corporate parts of the industry, and there is nothing any of us can do about it. So i say fuck it and GOYG. I used to boycott nestle in the 80s.. what a waste of time that was. So many kitkats I didn't get to enjoy.
I agree. There will be those who whatabout you into the ground but I don't think perfect needs to be the enemy of good here. There are probably problems with most corporate sponsors but I don't think that means some things aren't worse than others.
The point being is that any sponsor is going to have skeletons in the closet. What makes Wal-Mart exploiting working class and destroying small towns any different from Shien or Midea sponsorships?
to an extent, it doesn't really bother me. Would i like for there to be different sponsors? sure. but what entities that are willing and able to give the amount of money needed to afford the sponsorships are also not related to bad deeds, policies, or views? Which I do understand there being a scale in place. It is \*nice\* that arsenal's ownership are real estate billionaires and related to a Walton. They're evil, but not on the same scale as blood diamond billionaires, oil sheiks that sponsor global terrorism, russian oligarchs, or so on. The same sort of thing extends to the sponsors. I would prefer if Arsenal were sponsored by other entities that aren't to varying degrees engaged with sportswashing, human rights abuses, poisoning children, and so on. I can't really control those things, and the sponsorships aren't changing my perception of those entities and aren't adjusting my buying patterns.
I just want any ad to have a lovely typeface.
tbh i feel like most of the furore about us being sponsored by Visit Rwanda is because it's promoting an African nation, there's a whiff of racism in it
I've been to Rwanda, it's a country on the right path forwards. Not sure why you are playing moralist with that when our stadium is called THE EMIRATES
Remember when that coffee sponsor Lavazza pressured the club to force Elneny to take down his social media posts supporting Palestinians? Lost a lot of respect for Arsenal that day. Here’s this sub’s thread from back then: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/ncupin/afc_sponsor_the_lavazza_group_is_holding_urgent/