Tibet Water Campaign: Success!

By Mary Trewartha

Liverpool Football Club has caved in to pressure from Tibet campaigners and has chosen not to renew its controversial sponsorship deal with Tibet Water Resources Ltd (TWRL). TWRL extracts water from sources high in the Himalayas, exploiting Tibet’s precious resources and bringing no benefits to the Tibetan people, all the profits go to China.The deal with Liverpool FC was lucrative to both the club and to TWRL but over 86,000 people signed a petition calling on the club to drop the deal, pointing out that by working in partnership with TWRL, Liverpool FC was supporting China’s military occupation of Tibet and its flaunting of human rights there.

The petition was organised by consumer watchdog SumOfUs and supported by 28 Tibetan civil society organisations from around the world, including Free Tibet and Tibet Society UK. Liverpool FC’s supporters and fans also lobbied the club management to drop the deal.

The football club management did not respond to repeated requests for meetings and ignored the mobile billboard driven around the streets ofAnfield highlighting that Tibetans are tortured under Chinese rule. However, they quietly dropped the deal at the beginning of the new Premier League season.

Gloria Montgomery, Head of Advocacy and Campaigns at Tibet Society said: “This is a massive victory for Tibetans and the nearly 90,000 people globally who called on Liverpool FC to ditch the deal […] 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.”