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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Sparky-moon on 2026-02-08 12:40:16+00:00.
It is in Sudan that the United Arab Emirates – and City’s owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is vice-president and deputy prime minister of the UAE – stand accused of backing one side in a vicious civil war of almost three years. The bare facts of Sudan’s war are hard to compute: 400,000 deaths according to some estimates, 30 million people in need of aid, 13 million displaced.
Even those numbers, however, do not reflect the full horror. There are multiple reports of sexual violence and starvation, of refugees driven into disease-ridden camps. In December, the siege of the western city of El Fasher by the rebel militia, the Rapid Support Forces [RSF], ended after 500 days and is alleged to be the scene of a slaughter by the RSF.
‘Pep mentioning Sudan wasn’t by accident’
For Ahmed, hearing Guardiola speak this week about the atrocities in his native Sudan, was a revelation. Ahmed – not his real name – is part of a Manchester group of Sudanese émigrés that has staged peaceful protests outside the Etihad Stadium on match days against what he says is the UAE’s backing of the RSF. He considers himself both Sudanese and Mancunian.
“When I hear Pep reference Sudan as he did when accepting his degree, I hear someone who wants his legacy to show an explicit record of advocacy for the Sudanese people,” he says. “He [Guardiola] doesn’t go as far as to condemn his bosses, but [most] journalists don’t even bother to understand [or] even state the Manchester City link to Sudan.”
“Pep mentioning Sudan – I don’t think that is by accident,” Ahmed says. “I am a big football fan. I think he is trying to state for the record his opposition to what is going on… he doesn’t need to do any more. For him to say it to a room of journalists when there is so little empathy or humanity toward Sudan, [I believe] he wants to put his voice on the record.”