At least nine Premier League clubs are sponsored by companies directly complicit in Israel’s genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid against Palestinians, a major new report has found – with every single one of the league’s 20 clubs implicated through the Premier League’s own main sponsor, Barclays Bank.
Published by anti-poverty charity War on Want in May 2026, the report – titled “Red Card: English Premier League sportswashing of Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians” – names at least 15 companies sponsoring English Premier League (ELP) clubs that it says are “complicit in and profiteering from” what it describes as Israel’s ongoing genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid.
The report, co-developed with the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), cross-referenced publicly available information on EPL club sponsors against five authoritative databases, including the UN Database of Business Enterprises, the UN Special Rapporteur’s report on human rights in occupied Palestinian territories, and databases maintained by Who Profits, Don’t Buy Into Occupation, and the American Friends Service Committee.
Liverpool top a “table of complicity”
Using a points-based scoring system it calls the “Premier League Table of Complicity,” the report ranks all 20 EPL clubs by their number of sponsorship links to companies involved in Israel’s atrocities.
Liverpool top the table with six complicit sponsors, including Google/Alphabet, Standard Chartered, AXA, Expedia and Carlsberg. Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur joint second with five each, followed by Manchester City and Manchester United on four.
The report identifies four categories of complicity:
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- Tech and surveillance companies
- Companies sustaining illegal settlements
- Companies enabling atrocities through finance and energy
- Those providing material and ideological support
Among the most significant findings, Google/Alphabet – which sponsors both Arsenal and Liverpool and is a sponsor of the English FA – holds a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government known as “Project Nimbus,” largely funded through Israel’s Ministry of Defence.
The report says this provides the platform for Israel’s military to run artificial intelligence targeting programmes described as central to the war on Gaza.
Coca-Cola appears as a complicit sponsor for multiple clubs – including Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham – through its Israeli licensee, the Central Bottling Company, which the report says operates facilities in illegally occupied East Jerusalem and produces wine from vineyards in illegal settlements.
Banks, oil companies and tech giants named
Financial institutions feature prominently. HSBC, a Tottenham Hotspur sponsor, is said to have held more than $40 billion in shares and bonds in 67 companies complicit in Israel’s atrocities between January 2023 and August 2025.
Standard Chartered, a Liverpool sponsor, is identified as Europe’s eighth largest financial creditor to companies involved in Israel’s occupation and genocide. AXA, also a Liverpool sponsor, is listed as investing $9.6 billion in 51 such companies.
BP – a Tottenham Hotspur partner – is described as the joint largest supplier of crude oil to Israel, with much of it said to be destined for the Israeli military. The report also notes that BP was granted exploration licences in March 2025 to explore what it describes as Palestinian maritime resources.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), a sponsor of both Everton and Tottenham, has been the sole supplier of servers to Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority since 2017 – a body the report says uses data to implement discriminatory policies against Palestinians.
Every club implicated through Barclays
The report notes that all 20 Premier League clubs are indirectly linked through Barclays Bank, the league’s main sponsor and banking partner.
Barclays is described as Europe’s third most complicit financial institution in terms of loans and underwriting to companies involved in Israel’s atrocities, having provided nearly $31 billion to 35 such companies between 2023 and 2025. The report also draws attention to Barclays’ historical links to apartheid South Africa.
Beyond sponsorships, the report raises concerns about the owners of several clubs. The billionaire owners of Arsenal, Fulham and Manchester United each donated to Donald Trump’s first presidential inauguration.
Manchester City’s chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – chair of the company that owns Newcastle United – both sit on Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which the report describes as “a blueprint for ethnic cleansing” condemned by UN rights experts and Amnesty International.
Palestinian football “under siege”
A significant portion of the report documents the devastation wrought on Palestinian football. According to the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), Israel has destroyed or significantly damaged 265 sports facilities in Gaza since October 2023, including 23 major stadiums, 58 club headquarters and 12 FIFA-funded pitches. At least 565 members of the PFA – including players, coaches and referees – have been killed.
The report also criticises FIFA for declining to sanction Israel or the Israeli Football Association, contrasting this with FIFA’s suspension of Russian clubs within days of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
War on Want is calling on EPL clubs, the FA and the Premier League to ban sponsorship by companies complicit in war crimes and serious human rights violations, adopt comprehensive human rights policies, and protect players, staff and supporters’ freedom of expression.
The report also calls on the UK government to urgently address what it describes as its own failures to uphold international law.
War on Want said it has written to all priority clubs, the EPL and the FA ahead of the report’s publication.
