Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a big fan of football … and a fine strategist who wants to use the popularity of the sport to attract tourists. Wednesday, December 4, after more than a year of discussions, his country has made a deal in this direction with the club Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG).
This very official agreement, signed in the presence of François-Xavier Ngarambe, Rwanda's ambassador to France, during a Ligue 1 match at the Parc des Princes, stipulates that Kigali will pay between 8 and 10 million euros per year to PSG, according to the different figures that circulate. For this amount, the Parisian club will promote the small country to the dynamic economy (8.6% growth in 2008) but whose image is tainted by the 1994 genocide. "Visit Rwanda" will appear on the billboards of the Parc des Princes several times per game; the training and warm-up jerseys of the men's team and the women's match clothing will be flocked with the same slogan; and spectators will be offered Rwandan coffee and tea at the bar, two flagship products of the local economy.
For the PSG, the goal of this partnership, the first of its kind signed in Africa by this club, which in 2011 has become a property of Qatar Sports Investments, is twofold: diversify funding and develop its image internationally. The other part of the deal wants the PSG, whose financial strength, with a budget of 637 million euros for the 2019-2020 season, makes it one of the richest clubs in the world, will soon open a academy in Kigali, as it has done in other countries, including Morocco and Egypt.
A first contract with Arsenal
In 2018, the "land of a thousand hills" attracted 1.7 million tourists, according to figures provided by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), the national investment promotion agency; but he wants to go further. Coming soon, players and leaders of the Parisian club should go to Kigali and other cities to extol the assets of the country, become one of the safest in Africa, and get the message to 75 million fans PSG on social networks.
For Kigali, this signing with the Paris club is not a first. With the admiration of Paul Kagame for Arsenal – whose head of state scarcely misses any retransmission – the RDB had already signed with the English club, in May 2018, a three-year partnership, for an estimated total amount to 36 million euros, involving the mention "Visit Rwanda" on the jersey Gunners. British parliamentarians and Rwandan opponents were upset that Kigali is sponsoring a football club while 39% of the population lives below the poverty line.
This time, the announcement of the partnership with PSG comes a few days after the national team of Rwanda has renounced to participate in the Cecafa Cup, an annual competition reserved for the selections of East and Central Africa and organized this year in Uganda, officially for … financial reasons. An argument that surprises an observer of Rwandan football who, under cover of anonymity, recalls that "All the costs on the spot were taken care of by the organizer and that Rwanda had only to pay the air tickets of the delegation, maybe 25 000 or 30 000 euros maximum … And two weeks more later, we learn that he will sponsor the PSG for millions of euros! " The political strategy has its agenda that logic ignores …
