The Premier League has refused to accept a petition from Christian human rights advocates, calling for the league to hold Manchester City’s owner accountable for his ties to the civil war in Sudan.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) were blocked from delivering the petition, signed by 2,500 people, to the league’s London headquarters on Tuesday.
The petition calls on the league’s executives to raise with Sheikh Mansour the United Arab Emirates’ backing of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against the Sudanese Armed Forces, in a war which has killed at least 150,000 people and displaced 13 million others.
United Nations experts have concluded the RSF’s military actions in Darfur have the “hallmarks of a genocide”. Its forces have used weapons manufactured or re-exported by the UAE.
As well as owning Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour is UAE's vice president and a member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family. He is known to have close links with RSF’s leader, with US intelligence officers suggesting the pair are in regular communication.
Premier League rules, adopted in 2023, disqualify individuals from club ownership if they have been involved in “human rights abuses”.
Scot Bower, CSW chief executive officer, told Premier Christian News that it was “really disappointing and an unnecessary hostile inaction” for the league to prevent representatives from handing the petition over.
“We're simply asking the Premier League to do their own investigation, to call Sheikh Mansour to account. Is he a fit and proper person to be an owner of a Premier League football club? Or is he bringing the football club into disrepute, and by association, the Premier League?”
Bower said it was an “own goal” for the league, rejecting them and members of the Sudanese diaspora whose family and friends have been killed in the war. They were outside the offices for four hours, while security guards waited for directions from officials.
He likened the experience to being outside the Eritrean Embassy where security blocked them, and the Cuban Embassy where the petition was ripped up and pushed back at them.
“This is the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world, and it's also the hidden war,” Bower said, but he believed it could be ended if the UAE stopped its support of the RSF.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has said watching footage from conflicts including Sudan “hurt”, particularly with children being harmed, pledging to use his voice to “speak up to be a better society”. CSW encouraged him to raise the issue with club leaders and officials across the Premier League.
CSW will attempt to deliver the petition again, on 21 May.