A coalition of rights groups, including FairSquare, have requested that the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) immediately suspend UAE Team Emirates XRG from competition due to the UAE’s government support for forces committing genocide in Sudan.
UAE Team Emirates has enabled the UAE state to use cycling’s most celebrated races as a very public platform on which to project a positive image of the UAE despite the UAE government’s links to a genocide, and what the United Nations has called “the world’s largest displacement and worst humanitarian crisis”. The UAE’s financial backing for UAE Team Emirates means they are likely to win the team and individual prizes at the Tour de France, which starts in Barcelona on June 4.
As the letter outlines, UAE Team Emirates is under the financial and political control of the UAE state, and there is now a large and irrefutable body of evidence showing that the UAE is the primary financial backer and arms supplier to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who are committing genocide in Sudan. The team’s principal sponsors are two state-controlled entities. Emirates airline is owned by the government of the emirate of Dubai, and XRG is the investment wing of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, which is owned by the government of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Two state-linked institutions also serve as prominent sponsors of the team – First Abu Dhabi Bank, and E&, an Emirati telecommunications company.
The letter to the UCI also calls on world cycling’s governing body to review its licensing policies. One of UAE Team Emirates founding sponsors was the UAE military contractor, International Golden Group. Four years before IGG funding helped set up UAE Team Emirates in 2017, a UN Panel of Experts identified IGG as having assisted the UAE in funneling weapons to armed groups in Libya, and a France 24 investigation in 2025 identified IGG as having been involved in the diversion of weapons to assist the RSF in Sudan. IGG does not appear to be a current sponsor of UAE Team Emirates, but the fact that a military contractor linked to an authoritarian state was so heavily involved in the setting up of cycling’s pre-eminent team suggests serious due diligence failures on the part of the UCI.
The RSF has been accused by the UN of unleashing “a wave of intense violence … shocking in its scale and brutality” in acts which show “the hallmark of genocide” during its takeover of the city of El-Fasher in Sudan last year. Despite denials by the UAE government of its association with the RSF, there is an abundance of evidence from multiple credible sources of its support including the UN Panel of Experts on the Sudan, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.
UAE Team Emirates XRG has been ranked number one in the UCI World Tour since 2023, and their most high profile rider, Tadej Pogačar, has won the Tour de France five times. After Pogačar’s victory in the 2025 Tour de France in Paris, he and his UAE team mates, all emblazoned in UAE kit, locked arms and chanted “UAE! UAE!”. The team has stated that it “has the aim of representing an entire nation, the UAE”, and that it represents “a symbol of sporting success for the UAE”.
The UCI has a responsibility to respect human rights throughout all its operations. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights sets out these responsibilities, including the expectation that businesses will adopt specific policies and conduct due diligence to identify any risks of contributing to human rights harm. Such harm may include helping a country’s reputation in a way that helps distract from its human rights abuses.
The letter, signed by FairSquare, Sudan Unlimited, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy also highlights the participation of Team Bahrain Victorious and its direct links to the government of Bahrain which has overseen a massive clampdown on rights since 2011. The UCI’s code of ethics acknowledges its responsibility to safeguard the integrity and reputation of cycling throughout the world and its “duty of neutrality” in their dealings with governments. The four organisations have called on the UCI to conduct an immediate review of its licensing policy to take account of the dangers that state-linked teams pose to the reputation of the sport.
FairSquare has been campaigning for an end to state ownership of football clubs, and in April 2026, we called on the UK government to investigate the links between Manchester City FC owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and the RSF forces in Sudan.
“Cycling’s sponsor-driven business model makes it easy prey for authoritarians looking for cheap and effective public relations”, said FairSquare director Nick McGeehan. “The UCI’s failure to foresee this very obvious risk means that its most celebrated race now serves as a branding opportunity for a state linked to genocide. What the UAE is doing in Sudan should be a wake up call to the UCI and to cycling more generally.”
