Sheikh who wrested soccer & coddles warlords

Time of India

14 hours ago

File photo: A Sudanese soldier looks through documents found in the bedroom of a Rapid Support Forces commander, days after the paramilitary was driven out of that part of Khartoum. (Picture credit: NYT)
NAIROBI: Weeks before Sudan flamed into a calamitous civil war, one of the richest men in the Middle East, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, welcomed an architect of the chaos to his Persian Gulf palace.
The sheikh, a younger brother of the powerful ruler of the United Arab Emirates, is recognised in the West as a collector of superyachts and racehorses, and is perhaps best known as the owner of Manchester City, a hugely successful English soccer team. Last year, his team in New York won approval to build a $780 million soccer stadium in the borough of Queens, the first in the city.
Yet there he was, in February 2023, openly entertaining a notorious commander from the deserts of western Sudan — someone who had seized power in a coup, built a fortune on illicit gold and was accused of widespread atrocities.
Mansour had hosted the Sudanese commander, Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, two years earlier at an arms fair in the UAE. When Sudan's conflict exploded, in April 2023, Mansour helped the general wage war.
Charities controlled by Mansour set up a hospital, saying they were treating civilians. But according to US and United Nations officials, that humanitarian effort was also a cover for the secret Emirati effort to smuggle drones and other powerful weapons to Dagalo's group, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
A flood of evidence has emerged of massacres, mass rape and genocide by Dagalo's forces. The Emiratis deny arming any side in the war, but the US has intercepted regular phone calls between Dagalo and the leaders of the UAE, including Mansour.
An enigma of a Sheikh
Despite owning one of the world's most famous soccer teams, Mansour, 54, has remained an enigma, often showing a chameleonlike ability to disappear into the background. Yet, in interviews with more than a dozen US, African and Arab officials, he is described as being at the sharp end of his country's aggressive push to expand its influence across Africa and the Middle East.
In places such as Libya and Sudan, they say, Mansour has coddled warlords and autocrats as part of a sweeping Emirati drive to acquire ports and strategic minerals, counter Islamist movements and establish the Persian Gulf nation as a heavyweight regional power. 'He's the fixer, the handler, the one sent to places without much glamour or publicity, but which are important to the Emiratis,' said Andrew Miller, a former senior US diplomat.
Tides beginning to change
Last year, the British govt passed a law that, in effect, prevented Mansour from acquiring a venerable UK newspaper, fearing it could affect press freedom. Trials in the United States and Malaysia have uncovered accusations that Mansour profited from 1 MDB scandal, one of the world's biggest financial frauds. A UK panel is considering sweeping accusations that Manchester City has cheated on a grand scale. If found guilty, the team could be fined or stripped of titles.
The story of the Emirates
In his grandparents' time, most inhabitants of what is now the UAE were date farmers, camel herders and pearl fishermen. The discovery of oil in the 1960s transformed Dubai into an archetype of petrostate bling. The capital, Abu Dhabi, is a finance hot spot and aspiring AI superpower.
One family sits at the top. The Al Nahyans of Abu Dhabi are the world's second-richest family after the Waltons of the US, by some estimates.
They have ruled the UAE since 1971, and their power is concentrated in a group known as the 'Bani Fatima' — six sons of the favoured wife of the country's founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
Three of the sons dominate. The eldest brother, Mohammed, 64, known as MBZ, has been the de facto ruler for over two decades. Under him is Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 56, often referred to as the 'spy sheikh' — a sunglasses-wearing national security adviser and fitness enthusiast who has bonded with Zuckerberg over jujitsu. The thirdmost powerful brother, Mansour, as deputy PM and VP, controls key institutions, including the UAE central bank, the national oil company and the Abu Dhabi criminal authority.
He chairs Mubadala, a fast-growing $330 billion sovereign wealth fund with investments in AI, semiconductors and space tourism.