“Great gratitude and pride”
DFB explains the Nike deal in 8073 characters
March 22, 2024, 4:29 p.m
From January 2027, the German Football Association will enter a new financial dimension: the jersey deal with US market leader Nike will bring the association an incredible amount of money. But now the DFB is under pressure to justify itself.
The DFB will be kicking out its decades-old supplier Adidas in 2027 and will then be outfitted by the US company Nike for at least eight years – and paid handsomely for it. The association and its national team are joining the ranks of the most expensive football teams in the world. It’s actually a good thing, because part of the money should also flow into popular sports. And the extremely tight coffers of the association, which had to pay dearly for expensive trainers, expensive projects and a lack of charisma, will fill up again in the medium term. Due to the sporting crisis for the DFB men, there is apparently a lack of secure income for success at world and European championships.
But the deal is causing a lot of trouble: Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck complains about the lack of “local patriotism” in the country’s most important sports association. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach sees the deal as “a wrong decision where commerce destroys a tradition and a piece of home.” Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder, on whose lands the traditional German company is based, is foaming at the mouth. The DFB sees itself under pressure to justify its economic liberation. And so, one day after the announcement on the association’s website, they explain themselves in an 8,073-character question-and-answer piece.
This concerns, for example, the question of the controversial timing of the announcement, after all, national coach Julian Nagelsmann and his team are immediately facing two international matches in France and against the Netherlands – which are very important with a view to the home European Championship from June. “As experience has shown that such a conclusion can potentially have an impact on the capital markets, all participants in the process were informed in parallel and subsequently communicated publicly,” writes the association. “This immediate communication was also carried out in order to minimize any risk of insider trading and to protect existing and new partners, including their employees, as well as the DFB and its employees and committee members.”
The most important question remains unanswered
With this approach, the association acted in the interests of all bidders, “also in view of the fact that the award decision can have an influence on other business decisions of the bidders. For example, with a view to a similar process in France, where the French Football Association (FFF) the supplier partnership has advertised.”
Curious: The most important question, namely how much money the association collects for the partnership, is asked by the DFB itself – and then expressly does not answer it. The “Handelsblatt” speaks of a “three-digit million sum” that the US market leader spends annually on its emblem on the jerseys of the German national soccer teams – a total of a good 800 million euros. As part of the award process, all those involved “undertook to maintain confidentiality; the DFB will therefore neither confirm nor deny or comment on figures regarding the economic framework of the partnership with Nike,” writes the association.
Adidas, whose offer is said to have lagged significantly behind that of its US competitors, is not enthusiastic about the foreseeable end of the partnership. After all, company founder Adolf Dassler used his stud technology to give the heroes of Bern the stability to beat the superior Hungarians on the soggy turf of the Wankdorf Stadium in 1954. And they had won two of the four World Cup titles with the three stripes on their jersey.
The DFB has not forgotten that. And promises: “The DFB feels committed to the common tradition and strives to make the partnership positive until the last day. The DFB will never forget the successes and the shared history, Adidas will always be a special part of the DFB history, which the DFB looks at with great gratitude and great pride.” Nevertheless, there could be unpleasant moments in the summer when the DFB men move into their European Championship quarters at the Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach.