FairSquare has requested that the UK government investigate the links between Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, in a complaint that details the central role of United Arab Emirates (UAE) government in fuelling the Sudanese civil war, and the evidence that points to Sheikh Mansour having played a central role in the UAE’s dealings with the RSF. Sheikh Mansour is the Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE and the owner of Manchester City FC in the UK.

The United Nations has accused the RSF 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. Multiple individuals and entities associated with both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed forces have been sanctioned by the UK government since the two warring parties entered an armed conflict in April 2023. 

The FairSquare complaint to the UK government, which was submitted on 7 April 2026, provides clear evidence that the UAE is the prime external driver of the conflict, and details Sheikh Mansour’s connections to the RSF. 

• There is an abundance of evidence from multiple credible sources, including the UN Panel of Experts on the Sudan, that the UAE has been providing weapons, ammunition, and other supplies to the RSF since June 2023 in violation of a 2004 UN embargo. 
• In doing so the UAE has fueled the conflict, which has resulted in well-documented RSF atrocities in El-Fasher. 
• The UAE has allowed individuals and entities linked to the RSF to coordinate their activities from the UAE, apparently unimpeded. 
• Sheikh Mansour controls or has controlling influence over two of the UAE entities that funded a field hospital at an airport in Chad through which the UAE has funnelled arms and supplies to the RSF. 
• Sheikh Mansour has been a senior and visible UAE interlocutor with the RSF before the outbreak of conflict in Sudan and since. 
• US intelligence has intercepted calls between Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and the RSF’s commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, and US officials have personally confronted Sheikh Mansour about UAE support for the RSF.
• Sheikh Mansour controls International Media Investments, which part owns Sky News Arabia, which has been credibly accused of whitewashing RSF atrocities in Sudan.

Should the UK government decide to impose sanctions on Sheikh Mansour, he would be disqualified from ownership of the football club under Premier League rules. FairSquare has written to both the Premier League and the new Independent Football Regulator, one of whose key objectives is to “safeguard the heritage of English football”, to inform them of FairSquare’s complaint. 

In February 2026, a UK government spokesperson said: “the evidence of RSF atrocities is overwhelming: civilians forced to choose between starvation or eating animal feed; children subjected to mass rape; families ambushed and killed as they flee; and perpetrators calling for “extermination”. Included in the FairSquare submission is evidence from international humanitarian organisations with a presence on the ground in Sudan, whose analysis is that the conflict may escalate further and that the UAE could be a key actor in any escalation and widening of the conflict, especially in light of new evidence linking the UAE to RSF supply lines originating in Ethiopia. More than 150,000 people have been killed since the conflict began and more than 30  million people require humanitarian aid. As detailed in a recent report by Medecins Sans Frontieres, the conflict has been characterised not just by the scale of humanitarian need but the extent and brutality of the violence against civilian populations.

“If the UK government is serious about disrupting this horrendous conflict, Sheikh Mansour’s well-documented links to the RSF and his ownership of Manchester City provide a very obvious point of leverage”, said FairSquare director Nick McGeehan. 

FairSquare sent a copy of the complaint to the UAE government and Manchester City FC and offered Sheikh Mansour the opportunity to respond to the allegations in the complaint. We did not receive any response.