Authors urge New York mayor Zohran Mamdani to press Arsenal to end UAE sponsorship over Sudan
New York mayor Zohran Mamdani was urged in an opinion piece published on 23 October 2026 to press Arsenal to end its sponsorship relationship with the United Arab Emirates because of the UAE’s backing of a militia in Sudan. Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast argue Mamdani’s combined profile as an Arsenal superfan and a human-rights campaigner presents a platform to push the club to act.
Mamdani is described as arguably the US’s most high-profile supporter of English Premier League champions Arsenal and a superfan since childhood. The Empire State Building was lit in Arsenal’s red and white when the club won the Premier League title, he has written an essay about the championship, speaks about Arsenal at press conferences and interviews, and he inaugurated Thierry Henry Way near Times Square. The piece frames those public gestures alongside Mamdani’s stated passion for standing up against genocide and for human rights.
Arsenal’s principal sponsor is Emirates Airlines, owned by the Emirates Group, a state-owned Dubai-based holding company, and the Emirates name appears on the club’s shirts while the team plays at Emirates Stadium. The UAE has spent more than $1bn sponsoring the team and expanded its contract through 2033 to more than $100m per season, making Arsenal the UAE’s second biggest sports investment globally.
The authors say the UAE is also supplying a Sudanese militia known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with weapons and killer drones, citing numerous investigations, and that the UAE is the RSF’s biggest supplier of weapons and drones. They write that the war in Sudan has created the world’s largest displacement crisis, with 14 million people, or a quarter of the country’s population, forced to flee their homes, and 21 million people facing acute hunger.
Lezhnev and Prendergast describe the UAE’s sports investments as a major sportswashing campaign and state the UAE government has spent more than $5.2bn on sponsoring sports teams and leagues worldwide, including Manchester City, the NBA champion New York Knicks (a team Mamdani also cheers for), the Emirates NBA Cup and Formula One.
The column notes Arsenal’s ownership has previously acted on sponsorship ethics, citing the club’s decision last year to cut its sleeve sponsor Visit Rwanda following that country’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the resulting humanitarian crisis. The authors say more than 8 million people have been displaced by that conflict and allege Rwanda commanded the M23 militia, which they say has tortured victims, engaged in extensive sexual violence and enlisted child soldiers; they add the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust and campaigns such as Gunners for Peace weighed in before the owners changed course.
Lezhnev and Prendergast point to Arsenal’s financial position and governance as relevant to any sponsorship decision, noting the club earned $411m in total — a record for Arsenal — after winning the league and reaching the Champions League final and is now reportedly the most profitable football club in England. They identify the club’s owners as American brothers Josh and Stan Kroenke and note the Kroenkes have previously called for a lifetime ban on former Los Angeles Clippers owner Don Sterling for making racist remarks. The authors add that sponsor alternatives exist, citing that Snapdragon pays approximately the same amount for sponsoring Manchester United as the Emirates pays Arsenal, and that Jeep and T-Mobile pay Juventus and Bayern Munich just a hair under.
The piece argues that Arsenal canceling the deal would have a meaningful impact on the UAE and on the situation in Sudan because the UAE is sensitive to public image and a cancelled Arsenal deal would be a major public relations blow. Lezhnev and Prendergast conclude that Mamdani’s intervention could have major human rights implications and say New Yorkers and Arsenal fans alike should encourage Mamdani to weigh in with the club on this issue. Sasha Lezhnev is Senior Policy Advisor at The Sentry, where John Prendergast is Co-Founder.