A DEMONSTRATION raising awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan took place outside the City of Manchester Stadium last weekend ahead of the high-profile Premier League match between Manchester City and Liverpool.

Placards read “UAE is committing genocide,” “hands off Sudan, boycott the UAE” and “Sudan is not for sale.”

The protests, organised by a group called Manchester Stands With Sudan, aimed to highlight the UAE’s involvement in the civil war in Sudan and its support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been accused of the “ethnically motivated” killing of civilians in El Fasher and western Sudan.

Manchester City is owned by the UAE via the City Football Group holding company and the private equity company Abu Dhabi United Group, hence the choice of protest position outside the club’s stadium.

The stadium itself is sponsored by Etihad, one of the UAE’s national airlines, alongside Emirates, which sponsors numerous other sports teams and organisations, including Arsenal, AC Milan, and Real Madrid.

UAE-linked sports sponsorship and ownership is widespread. Sport has become part of the geopolitical theatre, which means it now sits alongside other geopolitical interests, including conflict zones, as capitalist nations circle like vultures waiting to exploit these countries in the aftermath, or back one side in the hope of taking control.

In this arena, the UAE has taken a specific interest in Sudan, which has strategic links to the Red Sea as well as mineral wealth. It also has huge areas of productive agricultural land, which would be of great benefit to the UAE, which has very little arable land to grow its own food.

The UAE is allegedly providing arms to the RSF, and numerous reports and investigations in recent years have revealed as much.

There have also been reports that British-made military equipment and weapons have made their way to the RSF via Britain’s arms sales to the UAE.

“The genocide against the Masalit is being carried out by the RSF with the support and complicity of the UAE,” Sudan’s acting justice minister, Muawia Osman, told a United Nations court at The Hague in April.

Civilians have become trapped in a war zone in El Fasher, which has led to what the UN has called “ethnically motivated atrocities” at the hands of the RSF. Another word for that would be genocide.

“The risk of further large-scale, ethnically motivated violations and atrocities in El Fasher is mounting by the day,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said in October.

“Urgent and concrete action needs to be taken to ensure the protection of civilians in El Fasher and safe passage for those trying to reach relative safety.”

As is often the case in these situations, it’s all a bit too late. El Fasher was captured by the RSF last month, and the ethnic targeting of civilians has resulted in starvation and the obstruction of passage in and out of the city, including the obstruction of aid.

The UN relayed that “executions of civilians by RSF fighters are also being reported in Bara city, North Kordofan state in western Sudan, after it was captured by the RSF on 25 October following a major offensive.”

Despite numerous links, the UAE has always denied that it is backing the RSF. There were, though, recent admissions that it got things wrong in Sudan, ahead of and after the military coup in the country in 2021.

“We all made a mistake when the two generals who are fighting the civil war today overthrew the civilian government,” UAE diplomatic advisor Anwar Gargash said earlier this month.

“That was, looking back, a critical mistake. We should have put our foot down collectively. We did not call it a coup.”

Such a public admission is perhaps what led to an uptick in coverage of the atrocities in Sudan, which coincided with awareness being raised about the links to football and sport.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola himself highlighted the suffering in Sudan earlier this year.

“I’m deeply troubled by the images we’re seeing in real time in Sudan, Ukraine, Palestine and Gaza,” said the Manchester City manager in a speech after receiving an honorary degree from the University of Manchester in June.

“We see the horror of thousands of innocent families being killed, yet we’re surrounded by leaders who don’t consider the inequality and vulnerability of others.

“Maybe we think the boys and girls being killed by bombs, or being killed at hospitals because they’re not hospitals anymore, is not our business, but be careful, the next ones will be ours.”

Guardiola’s words helped raise awareness at a time when Sudan was not as regular or as high on the news agenda as the severity of the situation warranted.

The escalation in recent months, especially following the RSF’s capture of El Fasher, has made the situation more dire than at any point previously in what was an already devastating humanitarian crisis.

Thousands have been killed and tens of millions displaced since this civil war began in April 2023.

It cannot be ignored, and especially not when those arming it are advertising themselves so close to home, and have strong links to our teams, and to the sports we follow, which in some cases, as with Man City, extends to club ownership.

The Manchester Stands With Sudan protests ahead of such a high-profile sporting occasion could not be ignored, either, and played a big part in raising awareness of this issue and the UAE’s involvement following the atrocities in El Fasher.

Collectively, the sports that the UAE is involved in have the ability to put pressure on the country, and indeed the British arms suppliers, to end backing for the RSF and work to stop the crisis rather than arm it and escalate it.

It is yet another example that, given the circles in which the business of top-level football now operates, if there is something bad going on somewhere in the world, the sport, whether via a team, an owner, or an organisation, is probably linked somehow.