Sheikh Mansour faces calls for ban from football over UAE genocide links

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour could be barred from the Premier League if the UK government heeds calls to sanction him over alleged links to genocide in Sudan.

Human rights group FairSquare has called on the government to investigate the man who has led Manchester City’s transformation into one of the world’s richest and most successful clubs over claims he has facilitated war crimes in east Africa by arming militias.

The group has demanded that links between Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who is also Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces be investigated.

Sanctions on Sheikh Mansour by the UK government would render him disqualified from owning Manchester City in any capacity. The sanctioning of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich forced his sale of Chelsea in 2022.

Sheikh Mansour sanctioned?

FairSquare says it has informed the Premier League and the new Independent Football Regulator of its complaint to the government, which was made on 7 April. From next month the IFR will be responsible for vetting all owners of English clubs.

The UAE has been accused of supplying weapons to the Rapid Support Forces, which controls much of the west of the warring African nation.

The US and UK, with other nations, have imposed sanctions on firms and individuals linked to the Rapid Support Forces, but not Sheikh Mansour.

Non-for-profit FairSquare’s complaint states that “there is an abundance of evidence from multiple credible sources, including the UN Panel of Experts on the Sudan, that the UAE has been providing weapons, ammunition, and other supplies to the RSF since June 2023 in violation of a 2004 UN embargo”.

It added: “Sheikh Mansour controls or has controlling influence over two of the UAE entities that funded a field hospital at an airport in Chad through which the UAE has funnelled arms and supplies to the RSF.

“Sheikh Mansour has been a senior and visible UAE interlocutor with the RSF before the outbreak of conflict in Sudan and since.”

Sudan cival war links

The organisation said it sent a copy of the complaint to both Manchester City and the government of the United Arab Emirates.

It comes as Manchester City prepare to host Premier League leaders Arsenal this weekend in a match that could swing the title race back in their favour.

The club are still facing 115 charges of breaking the Premier League’s financial rules, eight years after competition chiefs first began investigating.

The Sudanese civil war has been raging on since 2023 after a period of instability following the independence of South Sudan in 2011. It is seen as one of the largest humanitarian disasters of recent times, with 12m people displaced. 

A report published by the United Nations in February said there were hallmarks of genocide in the country: “killing members of a protected ethnic group; causing serious bodily and mental harm; and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.”