Sunny Wong, executive director of Tibet Water Resources Ltd, and Billy Hogan, chief commercial officer and managing director at Liverpool Football Club, during the signing of their partnership on 24 July 2017. File photo/Liverpool FC
Tibet Sun Newsroom
McLEOD GANJ, India, 11 September 2018
Liverpool Football Club has caved in to pressure from Tibet campaigners, choosing not to renew its controversial sponsorship deal with Tibet Water Resources Ltd (TWRL).
Over 86,000 people had signed a petition calling on the club to drop the deal. The petition was organised by consumer watchdog SumOfUs and supported by 28 Tibetan civil society organisations from around the world, including Tibet Society UK and Free Tibet.
Campaigners called on the club to cancel the deal due to TWRL’s exploitation of the natural resources of Tibet, which is enabled through the help of the Chinese military occupation.
LFC remained silent in the face of the campaign for over a year, including when campaigners drove a mobile billboard in the streets around Anfield highlighting that Tibetans are tortured under Chinese rule.
The club failed to acknowledge any meeting requests from campaigners, led by the Tibet support groups, but then quietly dropped the campaign at the beginning of the new Premier League season.
Gloria Montgomery, Head of Advocacy and Campaigns at Tibet Society said “Our duty to ensure companies and brands are not complicit in human rights violations is absolutely clear, and Liverpool FC’s directors have now been forced to listen to these demands, including from their own fans, and put the Tibetan people before profits.”
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