Rwanda reveals billion-dollar ambition behind controversial F1 Grand Prix deal

Two key government officials in Rwanda have laid out the reasoning for their successful push to bring F1 to the country.

The move to award Rwanda with a future grand prix was announced earlier this week with the race pencilled into the calendar from 2030, but it has been met with some pushback.

Felix Jakens - Amnesty International UK’s Head of Campaigns - has claimed F1 had given Rwanda a 'sportswashing prize' and criticised the country's alleged 'detention, torture and repression of free speech'.

F1, for their part, told GPFans 'sport can be a huge driver of change and unifying force', and that they 'firmly believe that sport can be a positive force for good'.

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Rwanda Sports Minister: We should've gone to F1 earlier

The country's Sports Minister Nelly Mukazayire and Rwanda Development Board (RDB) CEO Jean-Guy Afrika sat down for an interview with Rwandan newspaper The New Times, in which Afrika - among other things - revealed hopes of raising the country's annual tourism income to over $1bn.

Mukazayire pointed to numbers which suggest that Africa as a continent profits proportionally less from sport than other continents, saying: "Sport is one of the ways that Rwanda has decided to use in driving economic growth and transformation of the country, and F1 is one of the steps in in that journey we've been undertaking for many years.

"When you look at it, it fits into the bigger picture that the country has been having, and the intention of hosting the African basketball league, FIFA Congress, FIA awards which were happening for the first time in Africa, and the UCI.

"All that shows that this is a natural growth of how one will see the potential that is out there in the sport. The sport industry is estimated to be around $680bn in 2028 and around $1tn in 2030.

"Africa today has only 0.5 per cent of their GDP as sport representation, while the rest of the world has 2 per cent. So the next question you ask yourself is how do we tap into all the opportunities to also grow our GDP through sports.

"F1 comes as a huge opportunity and to your question 'why now?' I would say actually we delayed. We should have done it yesterday, because it has a huge potential in terms of talent, in terms of fun, in terms of broadcasting.

"If I give you a small example, in one year their views on TV have more than doubled, and especially in Africa. So it shows that it's a natural growth of looking at where opportunities are and Rwanda has always been positioning itself to tap into those opportunities."

RDB chief: We are using sport to increase Rwanda's visability

Afrika, whose Rwanda Development Board run Visit Rwanda, added: "If you look at Visit Rwanda, F1 would be a natural evolution. We started with Arsenal and then we added different teams including Bayern [Munich]. We added PSG, we added Atletico [Madrid], across the Atlantic with the Clippers and the Rams.

"So it's a continuation of a strategy to use sports to increase the country's visibility and drive inbound tourism. The strategy has been very successful – last year we registered $685m in tourism receipts and we're aiming for $1.1bn.

"So to touch on what was just mentioned, the idea is to continue to use Visit Rwanda, Visit Rwanda is the one presenting the F1 race, to continue to drive tourism to the country and and in this particular case not only global tourism but also African tourism. More than 100 million Africans watch F1, and 60% of them are below the age of 35.

"So it's a natural continuation of our our strategy of using Visit Rwanda to drive inbound tourism. That's why Visit Rwanda is partnering and presenting F1."

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