Short answer: no. Arsenal's sponsorship with Visit Rwanda, the tourism-focused arm of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB, the Rwandan government agency responsible for promoting tourism, trade and investment), ended at the close of the 2025-26 season, in June 2026, after eight seasons. From the 2026/27 season onward, the club's sleeve carries a different name.
What replaced it
Arsenal's new sleeve sponsor is Deel, a global platform companies use to pay and manage employees and contractors across different countries. Reports that Deel would take over the sleeve emerged in December 2025, and Arsenal formally confirmed the partnership on May 14, 2026, ahead of the new season. Deel's logo now appears on the left sleeve of Arsenal's home, away and third shirts, under a multi-year agreement.
Deel wasn't a stranger to the club going into the deal. It had already become Arsenal's Official HR Platform Partner in December 2025, months before the sleeve sponsorship itself was announced. The smaller, back-office partnership came first, and the far more visible shirt deal followed once it was in place. For a full breakdown of what the Deel agreement is reportedly worth, and how that compares with Visit Rwanda's own numbers, see our year-by-year look at the deal's value.
Quick recap: how we got here
- 2018. Visit Rwanda becomes Arsenal's first-ever sleeve sponsor. A "sleeve sponsor" is the brand printed on the upper arm of a shirt, a smaller slot than the main sponsor logo across the chest. The deal was signed for three years.
- 2021. The partnership is extended.
- 2023 to 2025. The sponsorship faces sustained criticism from supporters, human rights organizations and political figures over allegations concerning Rwanda's role in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda disputes the allegations.
- November 19, 2025. Arsenal and the Rwanda Development Board jointly announce the partnership will end in June 2026, citing Rwanda's strategy to diversify its global sports partnerships.
- December 2025. Reports emerge that Deel has agreed to take over the sleeve.
- May 14, 2026. Arsenal formally confirms Deel as the new sleeve partner for 2026/27.
For the full timeline, including what's confirmed versus what remains unstated by either party, see our detailed breakdown of the Arsenal-Visit Rwanda ending.
What hasn't changed
Rwanda's tourism board didn't step back from sports sponsorship. It only stepped back from Arsenal. The RDB's own statement in November 2025 said it would keep engaging with Arsenal's men's and women's teams through other channels, and pointed to newer partnerships with the LA Rams and SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, both part of Stan Kroenke's wider sports and entertainment group, the same owner as Arsenal.
Visit Rwanda's relationship with Bayern Munich wasn't ended either, just reshaped. In August 2025, the two sides turned their commercial sponsorship into a youth-development partnership focused on the FC Bayern Academy in Kigali, running until 2028. Instead of Rwanda paying for shirt or stadium branding, the money now funds coaching, training facilities and a pathway for young Rwandan players into Bayern's academy system.
Rwanda's partnerships with Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid have continued unchanged. PSG renewed its Visit Rwanda deal through 2028 in April 2025, and Atlético Madrid's agreement runs through June 2028.
Visit Rwanda has also kept a presence in English football. It just moved to a different club. In July 2026, it announced a new partnership with Aston Villa, becoming the club's principal partner and appearing on the front of Villa's shirts rather than the sleeve. That's a step up in visibility from the Arsenal arrangement: a front-of-shirt logo is the most prominent, most expensive spot in football sponsorship, visible in every photo and broadcast shot the moment a shirt appears on screen, while a sleeve patch is a smaller, secondary placement. Industry reporting has put the Aston Villa deal at around £20 million a year, roughly double the reported value of the old Arsenal arrangement.
The bottom line
If you're seeing "Visit Rwanda" on old photos, videos or shirt listings, that reflects the 2018-2026 era of the Arsenal partnership. Arsenal's current kits carry Deel on the sleeve instead, and Visit Rwanda's biggest bet in English football now sits on the front of a different club's shirt.
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