The Premier League refused to accept a petition signed by over 2,500 people calling on the league to hold Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan to account for the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s role in the conflict in Sudan, that CSW attempted to deliver to the Premier League headquarters in London on 28 April.

The petition, launched in January outside Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium, is addressed to the chief executive, board and member clubs of the Premier League and asks them to raise the issue of the UAE’s support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with Sheikh Mansour, holding him to account for his country’s role in prolonging and profiting from a conflict which has killed over 150,000 people, displaced 13 million, and rendered 30 million in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

While both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) with whom it is in conflict are supported by various international actors, there is credible evidence that the UAE continues to provide military and financial support to the RSF.

In January 2024 the United Nations (UN) Panel of Experts on Sudan concluded that allegations of the UAE supporting the RSF’s military efforts through Am Djarass airport in Chad, where it claims to be running a humanitarian effort, are ‘credible’. Prominent human rights organisations and news outlets have also reported on RSF fighters using sophisticated weaponry either manufactured in or re-exported by the UAE, and on the UAE having likely deployed personnel and trained Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside the RSF.

Sheikh Mansour himself – who is also vice-president and deputy prime minister of the UAE – has well-documented ties with the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo. He has been described as Hemedti’s closest ally in the Emirates, and US intelligence officers claim to have intercepted regular phone calls between the two men.

In February 2026 the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan found that the RSF’s actions following its October 2025 capture of El Fasher city in Darfur bore the ‘hallmarks of genocide’ in the form of ‘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’.

In March 2026 the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that the US State Department designate the RSF as an Entity of Particular Concern (EPC), highlighting the ‘harmful effects to religious freedom and Sudan’s diverse religious and ethnic communities’ caused by the RSF’s campaign of mass atrocities and widespread human rights violations.

Speaking at the attempted hand-in event outside the Premier League headquarters in London, CSW’s Director of Advocacy and Team Leader for Africa and the Middle East Dr Khataza Gondwe said: ‘We are here today to call on the Premier League to uphold its obligations to prevent human rights abuses by raising the UAE’s involvement in the conflict in Sudan with Sheikh Mansour as a matter of urgency. We want them to insist that Sheikh Mansour uses his position to end this involvement, and to instead use the UAE’s vast wealth and resources to provide the people of Sudan with the humanitarian assistance that millions so desperately need. Also to ensure that the trade that the UAE more broadly is engaged in with Sudan confers benefits to the people of Sudan, is used to rebuild and develop the country, and does not remain in the hands of the few who seek personal profit.’

CSW’s Sudan Specialist Mohaned Elnour said: ‘The Sudanese community, organisations like CSW, and many others have been knocking on every possible door - the UN, the AU, the EU, the US and the UK. Despite our disappointment, we’ll keep raising our voices… The Premier League must act and use its influence to stop this war. This is just the beginning; we will continue to campaign until action is taken.’

Upon the Premier League’s failure to send a representative to accept the petition, CSW’s CEO Scot Bower said: ‘We are disappointed that the Premier League has chosen not to engage with us today. We are reminded of being outside the Cuban Embassy and having a petition torn up and pushed back at us, or at the Eritrean Embassy where the security refuses to let us in. Here, we’ve encountered a similar response from the Premier League. Apparently it’s too hard a decision for them to take to come and engage with us. All we asked for was for them receive the petition; their refusal means we will be back again.’

Notes to Editors:

1. The petition remains live and can be signed here.
2. Additional photos from the event are available on request.
3. The event also featured contributions from Sudanese human rights lawyer Moneim Adam of the Centre for Environmental and Social Studies, and Abdallah Idriss Abugarda, leader of the Darfur Diaspora Association. Transcriptions are available on request.
4. In March 2023 Premier League clubs unanimously approved changes to the League’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test (OADT) to add a range of new Disqualifying Events to the test, including one for ‘human rights abuses’. This Disqualifying Event does not appear in the OADT outlined in Premier League Handbook 2025/26, but the Premier League is also subject to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state that business enterprises should seek ‘to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.’