Adidas, Puma dumped Nigeria over alleged incidents, says ex-NFF boss Pinnick

Former Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president Amaju Pinnick has shed light on why major sportswear brands Adidas and Puma ceased their commercial relationships with Nigerian football. Pinnick alleges that an incident involving three Nigerians led to Puma blacklisting the country.

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I was utterly flabbergasted when I got the letter from Adidas. A few weeks or a few months into my being NFF president, they were leaving.

Pinnick detailed his challenges in securing sponsors after becoming NFF president, recalling Adidas's intention to leave shortly after his assumption of office. He described being "utterly flabbergasted" by the decision and recounted traveling to Zurich to meet with Adidas's president in a bid to reverse the move, but his efforts were unsuccessful.

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It was later I found out so many things that were…that I cannot come out in the media to say. I don’t like indicting people. I don’t like speaking. But I went deep. But I knew you were not coming.

While declining to publicly name individuals involved, Pinnick suggested that undisclosed issues influenced Adidas's decision. The sponsorship crisis, he noted, was further evidenced by other major companies like Globacom, Guinness, and General Insurance also leaving or signaling their departure from Nigerian football.

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I was introduced to the head of Puma. The head of Puma meant he understood that I was a Nigerian, not even as president of anything at that point. He didn’t want to talk to me.

The situation with Puma was particularly fraught. Pinnick recounted meeting the company's head executive during the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, who initially refused to speak with him upon learning he was Nigerian. The executive eventually shared a story about three Nigerians visiting his home on Christmas Day, allegedly offering to jettison an existing Adidas contract while presenting their own demands.

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He told me a story about how three Nigerians came to his house on a Christmas Day to tell him, ‘We can jettison the contract we have with Adidas, but this is what we wanted