European Champions League winners Bayern Munich yesterday unveiled their two new signings for the coming season, Borussia Dortmund’s Mario Gotze and Mainz defender Jan Kirchhoff.
Both of these players have boot sponsorship deals with Nike. Bayern Munich has a kit sponsorship deal with Adidas. In fact Adidas have been long standing sponsors of Bayern, and even hold a 9.1 per cent stake in the club, and the sportswear giant’s CEO Herbert Hainer is also a member of the board at the club.
So it was probably not only disrespectful but also a little foolish for the two new signings to arrive at the press conference to announce their signings wearing Nike T Shirts, with their boot sponsors logo emblazoned across their chests. They then posed with their respective Bayern shirts, the Nike logo out-sizing the Adidas one.
Adidas are far from pleased with a spokesman saying, “the pictures from today’s press conference with Mario Gotze have negatively surprised us, contractually it is not permissible because it is an official function of Adidas partner Bayern Munich.”
One cannot help feeling that someone at the club will have received a serious reprimand for allowing the two to enter the Press conference in their T shirts. In the meantime better perform from day one at their new club as despite having a boot sponsor who must be ecstatic with their performance, they have definitely started their time at their new club on the wrong foot.
