Short answer: no.
Visit Rwanda no longer appears on Arsenal's shirts.
The partnership between Arsenal and Visit Rwanda ended in June 2026, at the end of the 2025/26 football season. The sponsorship had lasted for eight seasons, beginning in 2018.
Visit Rwanda is the tourism brand of the Rwanda Development Board, or RDB. RDB is a Rwandan government agency responsible for promoting areas such as tourism, investment and business development.
For eight years, the words "Visit Rwanda" appeared on the sleeve of Arsenal's shirts. From the 2026/27 season, that space is occupied by a different company.
What replaced Visit Rwanda on Arsenal's shirt?
In this section
Deel is a global technology company that helps businesses employ, pay and manage workers in different countries.
Arsenal's new sleeve sponsor is Deel.
Deel is a global technology company that helps businesses employ, pay and manage workers in different countries. For example, a company in Nigeria could use Deel to hire and pay someone working in Rwanda, the United Kingdom or another country while managing contracts, payroll and other employment requirements through the platform.
The Deel logo now appears on the left sleeve of Arsenal's home, away and third shirts.
A sleeve sponsorship is simply the advertising space on the upper arm of a football shirt. It is different from the main shirt sponsor, whose logo normally appears much more prominently across the front of the jersey.
Reports that Deel would replace Visit Rwanda began appearing in December 2025. Arsenal formally announced the new multi-year sleeve partnership on May 14, 2026, shortly before the beginning of the new season.
Deel was already working with Arsenal before becoming the sleeve sponsor.
In December 2025, Arsenal announced Deel as its Official HR Platform Partner. That first agreement was mainly connected to the club's human resources and international workforce operations.
A few months later, the relationship became much more visible when Deel also took over the sponsorship space on Arsenal's shirt sleeve.
In simple terms, Deel first became one of Arsenal's business partners behind the scenes. It later became one of the brands supporters could actually see on the shirt.
For a full breakdown of what the Deel agreement is reportedly worth, and how that compares with the Visit Rwanda deal, see our year-by-year look at the deal's value.
How did Arsenal's relationship with Visit Rwanda begin?
The partnership started in 2018.
Visit Rwanda became Arsenal's first-ever official sleeve sponsor.
At the time, shirt sleeve sponsorship was becoming another way for football clubs to earn money from commercial partnerships. Instead of putting a company's name across the front of the shirt, clubs could sell the smaller advertising space on one sleeve.
For Rwanda, the idea was straightforward.
Arsenal has a global audience. Millions of people watch the club's matches, follow its players and see Arsenal shirts in photographs, television broadcasts, social media posts and advertisements.
Putting "Visit Rwanda" on the shirt allowed Rwanda to repeatedly place its tourism brand in front of that international audience.
The original agreement was signed for three years.
In 2021, Arsenal and Visit Rwanda extended the partnership.
That meant supporters continued seeing the Visit Rwanda name on Arsenal shirts for several more seasons.
Why did the Arsenal and Visit Rwanda partnership end?
Arsenal and the Rwanda Development Board announced on November 19, 2025 that the partnership would finish at the end of the 2025/26 season.
The official explanation was that Rwanda wanted to diversify its sports partnerships.
In simpler terms, Rwanda did not want all of its international sports marketing to depend on one football club. It was beginning to spread its tourism promotion across different clubs, sports, markets and countries.
There was also considerable criticism surrounding the sponsorship.
Between 2023 and 2025, some Arsenal supporters, human rights organisations and political figures questioned whether the club should continue promoting Rwanda because of allegations about Rwanda's involvement in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Rwandan government has disputed allegations made about its role in the conflict.
Neither Arsenal nor the Rwanda Development Board said that this controversy was the official reason the partnership ended.
That distinction matters.
There was public pressure around the sponsorship, but the official announcement presented the decision as part of Rwanda's changing international sports marketing strategy.
For the full timeline, including what has been officially confirmed and what has not, see our detailed breakdown of the Arsenal-Visit Rwanda ending.
A simple timeline of the Arsenal and Visit Rwanda deal
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2018: Visit Rwanda becomes Arsenal's first sleeve sponsor. The original agreement is signed for three years.
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2021: Arsenal and Visit Rwanda extend the partnership.
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2023 to 2025: The sponsorship receives increasing criticism because of political and human rights concerns connected to the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda disputes the allegations.
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November 19, 2025: Arsenal and the Rwanda Development Board announce that the partnership will end in June 2026.
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December 2025: Reports begin to emerge that Deel will become Arsenal's next sleeve sponsor.
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May 14, 2026: Arsenal officially announces Deel as its new sleeve partner.
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June 2026: The Visit Rwanda partnership officially ends after eight seasons.
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2026/27 season: Arsenal begins wearing shirts carrying the Deel logo on the sleeve instead.
No.
This is probably the most important part of the story.
Rwanda did not stop using sports to promote the country.
It stopped sponsoring Arsenal in that particular way.
Sports sponsorship is still an important part of Rwanda's international marketing strategy.
The country has continued working with football clubs and has also expanded into other sports and markets.
Rwanda still has links with Arsenal's owners
When the Arsenal partnership ended, the Rwanda Development Board pointed to newer partnerships with the Los Angeles Rams and SoFi Stadium in the United States.
This is interesting because the Los Angeles Rams, SoFi Stadium and Arsenal are all connected to businesses controlled by Stan Kroenke and the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment group.
In other words, Visit Rwanda left Arsenal's shirt, but Rwanda did not completely move away from the wider sports business connected to Arsenal's owners.
It simply changed where and how it was spending some of its sponsorship money.
What happened to the Bayern Munich partnership?
Visit Rwanda's relationship with Bayern Munich also changed, but it did not completely end.
In August 2025, Bayern Munich and Rwanda announced that their relationship would focus more heavily on youth football development.
The agreement now runs until 2028 and supports the FC Bayern Academy in Kigali.
That means the partnership is less focused on putting the Visit Rwanda brand in front of football supporters and more focused on developing young players.
Money from the partnership supports areas such as coaching, training and football development.
It also creates opportunities for talented young Rwandan footballers to develop within Bayern's academy system.
So this was not simply a sponsorship cancellation. It was a change in what the partnership was designed to achieve.
What about Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid?
Rwanda has continued working with other major European football clubs.
Paris Saint-Germain renewed its Visit Rwanda partnership through 2028 in April 2025.
Visit Rwanda also has a partnership with Atlético Madrid, which runs through June 2028.
This shows that the Arsenal decision was not a general withdrawal from European football sponsorship.
Rwanda has instead been adjusting its mix of partnerships.
Some are focused on tourism advertising.
Some are connected to football development.
Others give Rwanda access to audiences in new international markets.
Visit Rwanda also remained involved in English football.
In July 2026, it announced a new partnership with Aston Villa.
This deal is even more visible than the old Arsenal sponsorship because Visit Rwanda appears on the front of Aston Villa's shirts.
That difference is important.
At Arsenal, Visit Rwanda appeared on the sleeve, which is a smaller advertising position.
At Aston Villa, the brand sits on the front of the shirt, where the main sponsor normally appears.
Think about a television photograph of a footballer standing directly in front of the camera.
The logo across the chest is usually one of the first things you notice. A sleeve logo may only be clearly visible when the player's arm is facing the camera.
That is why front-of-shirt sponsorships are generally considered more valuable and more expensive than sleeve sponsorships.
Industry reports have placed the Aston Villa agreement at around £20 million per year, which would be roughly twice the reported annual value of the old Arsenal sponsorship.
So while Visit Rwanda disappeared from Arsenal's shirt, the brand did not disappear from English football.
It moved to a different club and gained a much larger position on the shirt.
So what does all of this mean?
The end of the Arsenal partnership does not mean Rwanda has abandoned sports sponsorship.
It shows something slightly different.
Rwanda appears to be changing how it uses sport to market the country.
When the Arsenal partnership began in 2018, getting the words "Visit Rwanda" onto the shirt of one of the world's most recognised football clubs gave the country's tourism campaign enormous international exposure.
Eight years later, Rwanda has a wider collection of sports relationships.
Some partnerships promote tourism.
Others support football development.
Some give Rwanda visibility in Europe, while newer agreements are helping the country reach audiences in places such as the United States.
And in English football, Visit Rwanda has moved from a smaller sleeve position at Arsenal to the more prominent front of Aston Villa's shirt.
The bottom line
In this section
From the 2026/27 season, Deel replaced Visit Rwanda as Arsenal's sleeve sponsor.
If you see an Arsenal shirt carrying the words "Visit Rwanda," it belongs to the period between 2018 and 2026.
The partnership ended in June 2026 after eight seasons.
From the 2026/27 season, Deel replaced Visit Rwanda as Arsenal's sleeve sponsor.
But Visit Rwanda itself has not disappeared from football or international sports marketing.
Rwanda continues to work with clubs including Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid, has reshaped its partnership with Bayern Munich around youth development, has expanded into American sports partnerships, and has returned to English football through Aston Villa.
So the simplest way to understand the change is this:
Visit Rwanda did not stop sponsoring sport. It stopped sponsoring Arsenal and moved its marketing into a broader group of partnerships.
Sources
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Rwanda Development Board, "Arsenal and Visit Rwanda to conclude landmark eight-season partnership in June 2026"
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Arsenal FC, "Deel and Arsenal announce multi-year sleeve partnership"
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SportsPro, "Arsenal swaps Visit Rwanda for Deel in new sleeve partnership"
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FC Bayern, "FC Bayern and Rwanda extend academy partnership until 2028"
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Paris Saint-Germain, "Paris Saint-Germain and Visit Rwanda renew groundbreaking partnership through 2028"
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Club Atlético de Madrid, "Visit Rwanda becomes new official Atleti sponsor"
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Aston Villa FC, "Aston Villa announce Visit Rwanda partnership"
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BBC Sport, "Arsenal to end eight-year sponsorship deal with Visit Rwanda in June 2026"
