By PART 1:
A Billionaire’s Facade
When Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan bought Manchester City Football Club in 2008, it was heralded as a golden era for English football. A once-mid-tier club became a global powerhouse almost overnight. The purchase was framed as an innocent love for the beautiful game—but behind the spectacle lay something far more sinister.
Beneath the glamour of football trophies and luxury sponsorships is a deep state apparatus implicated in atrocities across Africa, particularly Sudan. Sheikh Mansour, half-brother of the UAE’s president Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) and the country’s current Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister, isn’t just a sports investor—he’s a political operator whose wealth has helped fuel wars, undermine democracies, and prop up genocidal militias.
In this first installment of our three-part series, we delve into how Mansour and the UAE’s elite use global investments—especially in sport and media—to launder reputations and deflect scrutiny from their role in war crimes, arms smuggling, and violations of international law, with a deadly focus on Sudan’s ongoing crisis.
The Rise of Mansour: Politics, Power, and Petroleum
Sheikh Mansour’s influence extends beyond sport. He is chairman of Mubadala Investment Company, a $300 billion Emirati sovereign wealth fund. He also oversees the Abu Dhabi United Group, which controls City Football Group, now owning or partnering with over a dozen clubs worldwide.
These financial engines allow the UAE elite, especially the Al Nahyan family, to execute a dual strategy: expand global influence through investment while suppressing dissent at home and abroad. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly criticized the UAE for arbitrary detention, torture, surveillance, and political repression. Yet in Western media, this is often lost in the noise of Premier League fanfare and glossy tourism campaigns.
This selective silence is not accidental.
Sudan: The Battlefield of Proxy Ambitions
Since 2023, Sudan has plunged into chaos, with a brutal civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary faction known for its roots in the Janjaweed militias responsible for genocide in Darfur during the early 2000s.
Investigations by The New York Times, UN reports, and African and Arab media reveal damning evidence: the UAE has provided direct material support to the RSF in violation of international law.
UAE’s Material Support to RSF
- Weapons: In early 2024, a UN Panel of Experts confirmed that weapons and military vehicles traced to UAE manufacturers, including Nimr armored vehicles, were found in RSF-controlled areas. Satellite imagery and intercepted arms shipments show UAE-origin military cargo arriving via Chad and Libya to RSF units in Darfur and Khartoum.
- Field Operations: In Chad, UAE-funded “humanitarian” field hospitals and airstrips near the Sudanese border were shown—through leaked U.S. intelligence cited by The New York Times—to be RSF logistical hubs. These sites facilitated drone shipments and medical support exclusively for RSF fighters, not civilians.
- Gold-for-Guns: The RSF controls major gold mines in Darfur. Gold is smuggled via Dubai through shell companies and resold on international markets. In 2020, Global Witness exposed Al Junaid, a company owned by RSF leader Mohamed “Hemedti” Dagalo’s family, as a key actor in this scheme. The UAE, particularly Dubai, enabled and profited from this laundering operation.
Violating International Law and UN Resolutions
The UAE’s arms shipments to the RSF violate multiple international laws:
- UN Security Council Resolution 1591 (2005): Imposes an arms embargo on Darfur, explicitly forbidding the sale or transfer of weapons to warring parties without Security Council approval. The UAE has blatantly violated this.
- International Humanitarian Law: Supplying weapons to a force committing mass atrocities—including targeting civilians, ethnic cleansing, and sexual violence—implicates the UAE in aiding and abetting war crimes.
- Genocide Convention (1948): While Sudan itself faces genocide allegations at the International Criminal Court, the suppliers of weapons and logistics, such as the UAE, may be culpable as complicit actors under international law.
Human Rights Watch reported mass graves and systematic sexual violence by RSF units. Survivors consistently recount attacks with drone support and armored vehicles—technologies the RSF did not previously possess, but began using after Emirati involvement deepened in mid-2023.
Mansour’s Role: The Political Businessman
As Minister of Presidential Affairs and a key policy actor in MBZ’s inner circle, Mansour has been linked—via both leaked documents and investigative journalism—to decision-making surrounding military aid to foreign proxies. His brother, MBZ, acts as the architect of the UAE’s aggressive foreign policy, while Mansour executes the financial logistics.
Moreover, U.S. intelligence intercepted direct calls between RSF commander Hemedti and Mansour bin Zayed, discussing tactical needs and funding arrangements, according to reports cited by Sudanese media and verified in part by The New York Times.
Mansour’s companies and charities, under the guise of humanitarian relief, have been implicated in this covert support. The Emirates Red Crescent was caught delivering “medical” cargo that included encrypted communication equipment and drone parts.
The Sportswashing Strategy: Distraction and Deception
While RSF fighters slaughter civilians in Geneina and Khartoum, Sheikh Mansour smiles from VIP boxes in the Etihad Stadium. Manchester City’s record-breaking wins and star-studded squad serve as a global distraction.
This is no accident. Sportswashing—the use of high-profile athletic investment to cleanse the public image of authoritarian regimes—is central to the UAE’s foreign policy. Through football, the UAE isn’t just playing for trophies—it’s buying silence.
Human rights groups in the UK have called on the Premier League to launch a formal investigation into the club’s funding. Yet no action has been taken, largely due to complex ownership structures and the Premier League’s weak regulatory framework.
Meanwhile, any criticism of the UAE’s involvement in Sudan is drowned out by City’s branding campaigns, celebrity endorsements, and British media complicity.
Western Complicity: The UN, UK, and USA
Perhaps more troubling than UAE’s actions is the international community’s silence:
- The United Nations: Despite having clear evidence of arms transfers and humanitarian law violations, the Security Council has failed to impose sanctions or even condemn the UAE. Geopolitical power plays—especially between the UAE, the U.S., and the UK—ensure vetoes or quiet blockage of any punitive measures.
- The United Kingdom: The UK has welcomed Emirati investments, turning a blind eye to their source. The Conservative government has enjoyed close ties with UAE leadership, receiving donations and inviting Emirati royals to exclusive diplomatic events—even amid reports of war crimes.
- The United States: Though U.S. intelligence is aware of UAE-RSF coordination, the Biden administration has avoided action. The UAE remains a key ally in the Gulf, and strategic interests in countering Iran and securing energy markets seem to outweigh concerns over Sudanese lives.
This silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.
Conclusion: The Pitch is Red
What began as a football story is in truth a war story. Sheikh Mansour and the UAE have weaponized global goodwill to mask war crimes. While fans chant in stadiums and children wear sky-blue jerseys, bombs fall on Sudanese neighborhoods using weapons smuggled under Mansour’s watch.
The world applauds a football dynasty—while ignoring a humanitarian catastrophe made worse by its owners.
Coming in Part 2: We expose the UAE’s gold-for-guns network, how Dubai’s gold markets launder war wealth, and how Western institutions profit from African blood.