Tyrants and demagogues love sports and the governing bodies that preside over them. Despite strictures, injunctions and warnings about dealing with unsavoury regimes, a sporting body or organisation can always be relied on to ignore the fine print of their charters and make a dash for the revenue till. While the candidates for such a list are long—the International Olympic Committee and the world footballing body FIFA figure with amoral sprightliness in that regard—Formula One (F1) has shown itself to be most promiscuous.
In its 13 October statement, FI glows with the announcement that motor racing will “return to Africa for the first time since 1993.” Then, the apartheid government of South Africa, one nearing expiration, still offered their good services to F1 to run the tournament as part of a controversial tradition. (The South African Grand Prix had been something of a fixture since the 1960s, barring the interrupting hiccup in the latter 1980s.) In a ten-year agreement with the Rwandan government, the Formula 1 African Grand Prix will become a part of the racing calendar in the early 2030s, beginning its first race at the still to be completed Bugesera circuit. “The new track will be developed to FIA Grade 1 standards as part of a wider sports, tourism, infrastructure, and commercial development project led by the Rwanda Development Board.”
The language of the announcement resembles the best traditions of sporting colonialism in the hunt for willing consumers. “Africa represents one of the most exciting growth opportunities for the sport, with more than 100 million fans already following F1 across the continent, and almost 60% of fans in key Sub-Saharan African Markets under the age of 35.” The project is celebrated as beneficial with its promise of creating “a legacy of supporting tourism, attracting investment, developing local talent and creating new opportunities for communities and businesses.”
F1 also praises Rwanda for its appeal “as one of Africa’s leading destinations for international events, successfully hosting major sport and global gatherings.” These include, amongst others, the UCI Road World Championships, the ICC Women’s Challenge Trophy, the 2023 FIFA Congress and the Basketball Africa League.
The Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, heaped praise on the project. As is a tendency befalling many African leaders, the decision of one country is treated as having been made for the benefit of an entire, neglected continent. “Today belongs to Africa. For more than three decades, the world’s premier motorsport championship has raced without this continent, and that changes with this agreement.”
What, then, is there not to like? The answer: much and more besides. For one thing, the motorsport body, despite stipulating the need to respect “internationally recognised human rights in its operations globally” in its own charter, has decided to overlook the distinct unpleasantness of the Kagame regime, one not above using arbitrary detention, torture and stomping on free speech. In its 2026 accounting of the country’s human rights record, Human Rights Watch (HRW) notes continued attacks on freedom of expression and association, including the arrest of Victore Ingabire in June of the unregistered opposition party Development and Liberty for All (DALFA-Umurinzi). Among the charges she faces is forming a criminal group and planning activities with the purpose of inciting public disorder. HRW also notes a lack of progress in investigating the “suspicious deaths of disappearance of critics, journalists, and opposition activists.” Kigali’s spotty record on protecting refugee and migrant rights is reiterated. In terms of foreign policies, a stern eye is trained on the ongoing support for the notorious M23 armed group in eastern Congo, responsible for “mass summary executions, arbitrary detention, torture, forced labour, forced recruitment including child recruitment, forced deportations, sexual violence, and intimidation of journalists and activists.”
In June, the Democratic Republic of Congo filed a case against Rwanda in the International Court of Justice concerning “abuses attributable to Rwanda over a period extending from 1996 to the present day.” These were perpetrated “as part of a campaign of genocide and serious, widespread human rights violations waged by the Rwandan authorities in eastern Zaire, and subsequently in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo” most directed at “Hutus present on Zairean, and subsequently Congolese, territory following the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.” Other ethnic groups, including the Nyindu, Bembe, the Lega, the Nande, the Hunde and the Bashi, are also alleged to have been targets.
In its response to the Formula 1 African Grand Prix agreement, Amnesty International was particularly vocal, with its UK Head of Campaigns, Felix Jakens, adamant that Rwanda was “buying into the world’s biggest sports to polish its image and deflect from its appalling human rights record” at home and its deplorable military policy in eastern Congo, including ongoing support for the M23 armed group.
Kagame’s Rwanda, however, is relentlessly ambitious when it comes to cultivating the international sporting market. The F1 announcement is in keeping with a broader strategy, one that is doing wonders to burnish Kigali’s image as a responsible investor and reliable international citizen. The English Premier League, for instance, has shown itself most enthusiastic about that state’s forays into the competition, notably through its £20 million-a-year Aston Villa-Visit Rwanda sponsorship deal involving merchandise, tourism and the provision of coffee. This more than happily replaced the previous sponsorship arrangements with Arsenal Football Club, which concluded an eight-season partnership in June this year worth £10 million a year. In a media release, the Club praised the agreement in gushing terms as exceeding “the original goals” in “promoting conservation and sustainable tourism, inspiring millions of supporters to discover the country, and creating a lasting foundation for tourism growth.”
On the European continent, Rwandan sponsorship has also left its mark on Germany’s premier football club, Bayern Munich, and France’s Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). The former ended its commercial ties with Visit Rwanda in August 2025, preferring to focus on expanding its youth academy in Kigali, but Visit Rwanda, according to its own website, remains “a Premium Partner” of PSG at least till 2028. Clearly, the entreaties by Congo’s persistent Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner to end “blood-stained” sponsorships between such clubs and Kigali have yielded patchy results.
Hearteningly, the fans at these clubs have not remained silent. At Arsenal, a fanbase group calling themselves Gunners for Peace thought differently from their administrative grandees, having campaigned for an end to a deal that funded “a brutal militia committing atrocities against thousands of innocent victims in Eastern Congo.” In the sharpest of barbs featuring their rivals of old, the group even began a “Visit Tottenham campaign to highlight just how wrong Visit Rwanda is.”
Wrong, and yet, for those in F1 more than just right. As Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) president Mohammed Ben Sulayem told BBC Sport Africa, “When people cannot get what they want, they always blame it on sportswashing.” With bemoaning critics boxed and dismissed, motor racing’s top poohbah expressed a sneering sentiment shared by sporting governors the world over: “I honestly don’t care about what they say.”