Puma’s sponsorship of Israel’s national football teams will not be renewed — but the sportswear giant, its Israeli branch and the Israel Football Association (IFA) are disputing who terminated the agreement, why and when.
On Tuesday, Puma announced that they would be ending their sponsorship next year. The German manufacturer insisted the decision was taken at the end of 2022.
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The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) have been calling for boycotts against Puma due to their sponsorship of Israel’s national football team. BDS described the move as a “win” for its movement and claiming it had “forced (Puma) to abandon its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association”.
But Puma said that their decision was unrelated to BDS’s protests.
The Israeli FA, though, have claimed that they made the decision to end the agreement with Puma next year. The Athletic has seen a document purporting to be an agreement between the Israeli FA and Puma. This document said the deal would run until the end of 2024, and that the Israeli FA had the option to extend it for a further two years until the middle of 2026.
The Athletic has also seen emails that — translated from Hebrew — make people at the company who represent Puma and distribute their products in Israel aware of the IFA’s decision not to extend the sponsorship beyond the last day of 2024. The emails, with IFA branding, are dated September 19 — more than two weeks before the Hamas attacks on Israel.
While Puma’s position remains that it terminated sponsorship agreements with Israel and Serbia “due to commercial reasons” — Puma’s distributor in Israel suggested otherwise.
Israel Puma posted a statement on their Instagram stories, saying: “(This) is a decision of the Football Association and not the Puma brand.
“The Puma brand views Israel as an important and quality partner and we will continue to contribute to the sports and to the citizens of Israel with pride.”
This was an amendment to a previous statement published on the stories of the @pumaisrael Instagram account, which was subsequently deleted.
The original version included the message that the company “will continue to support Israeli football, Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, local businesses and make a significant contribution to the war victims”.
(Valentine Chapuis/AFP via Getty Images)The deleted original also stated: “Together, we will win,” alongside an emoji of the Israel flag, which were also both excluded from the subsequent statement.
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When Puma was asked to clarify this by The Athletic, they responded: “These decisions (to end sponsorship of the Israel and Serbia national teams) were taken in 2022 in line with the regular timelines for the design and development of the team jerseys.”
The contract will remain in place throughout 2024, meaning that Puma will be sponsoring the Israel men’s team for the European Championship play-offs; Israel will play Iceland in the semi-final of the Path B qualification route on March 21.
Should Israel qualify for next summer’s finals in Germany, Puma will manufacture their shirts and the IFA will be entitled to a bonus due to contract terms on qualification for a major tournament.
The partnership between Puma and the IFA began in 2018. It led to calls by BDS to boycott the sportswear giant. Activists accused Puma of supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank — which a spokesperson for UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres described as “illegal” in June — as the IFA includes clubs based in those settlements.
Puma has rejected these allegations, taking the position that sponsorship of the national team does not endorse club-level activities.
Protests have been held outside flagship stores of the manufacturer.
Protests have been held outside Puma stores (Thomas Krych/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)The IFA has rejected suggestions that external pressure on Puma played any role in the ending of the partnership.
“In contrast to the pathetic attempt of the BDS movement, or any other hostile movement, to mislead and claim that the agreement between Puma and the IFA came to an end under its influence, Puma’s announcement confirms that this was not a consideration at all,” an IFA representative told The Athletic.
“The IFA is the one that informed Puma on 19 September 2023 that the agreement between the parties will be ended on 31 December 2024, even though there was a possibility of extending it until 2026 according to the agreement between both sides.” Those dates match those in a document shared by the IFA with The Athletic. Puma declined to comment on the specifics of the arrangement.
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Israel’s only previous appearance at a major international tournament was in the group stage of the 1970 World Cup and they are currently ranked 75th in FIFA’s world rankings.
Puma have manufactured Israel’s equipment since 2018 (Hector Vivas – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)Puma added: “We decided to implement our new fewer-bigger-better strategy and apply it also to sports marketing.
“The review of the existing roster of national teams along certain KPIs such as commercials and participation in major international tournaments led to a few changes.”
The sportswear manufacturer added that two newly signed national teams — including a new statement team — will be announced later this year and in 2024.
The IFA will now be seeking a replacement for Puma to manufacture their national team range, with any changes to come into effect in 2025.
(Photo: Francesco Scaccianoce/UEFA via Getty Images)
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