Rwanda concluded Wednesday, December 4, a deal of several million euros with Paris Saint Germain (PSG), the leading club of the French championship. In return, the words “Visit Rwanda” will be promoted on the supports of the club.
We will not see Neymar, the most expensive player in the world, neither his friend Mbappé nor Senegalese Idrissa Gueye wearing jerseys flanked by “Visit Rwanda” during a match. But these stars and their other colleagues Di Maria, Verrati, Cavani, Thiago Silva… will wear many tunics with the message of promotion of the visitation to Rwanda during training and during warm-ups.
The words “Visit Rwanda”, a small landlocked country ( 26,338 km²) in East Africa, will be displayed on signs at the Parc des Prince, the club stadium, during matches. Similarly, some of the country’s flagship products, tea, and coffee, will be on display at the club bar. The women’s club team will also be involved.
In recent years the country of Paul Kagame has embarked on a diplomatic offensive or charm at the international level. In 2008, the country had already signed a similar contract with the London club Arsenal, which had raised some criticism from British parliamentarians and Rwandan opponents. The same year, President Paul Kagame was appointed President of the African Union, a term during which he tried to mark his passage by trying to push through some reforms.
As soon as Kagame’s term ended at the head of the African Union in early 2019, his former foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, took over the General Secretariat of the International Organization of La Francophonie.
Fifteen years after the genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in the country, the authorities are stepping up their efforts to give their countries a new reputation, to present it as an open, welcoming, and clean country and also forget the many criticisms of human rights violations whose regime is often the target.
