You often hear suggestions that brands who back clubs ‘strongly suggest’ that their players wear football boots from the same brand, or even offer up free pairs to unsponsored players so that the brand gets a bit more exposure.
Guerrro is usually a model F50 wearer…
But Hamburger SV has an agreement with adidas which means that all players must wear adidas football boots, or face a fine – according to German newspaper Sportbild.
Peruvian Striker Paolo Guerrero found this out the hard way after reportedly being slapped with a cash fine for wearing some Nike football boots during two of Hamburger SV’s Bundesliga games in October.
The pacey frontman snuck his blacked-out Superfly I into two games against FSV Mainz 05 and Bayern Munich, despite having played in the adiZero for much of the season – we reckon this makes him and Steven Ireland some of the only players in Europe to swap his adiZeros for a pair of Vapors!
It’s very interesting to see that, despite blacking out his football boots, Guerrero was still slapped with punishment. Images of the Peruvian’s Superfly‘s show that he had gone to great lengths to remove all branding from his cleats – unlike the shoddy job William Gallas does to his Yellow Superflys week-in, week-out!
The fine seems to have worked, though, as Guerrero was back in the adiZero (Cyan/White/Pink, for all you attention-to-detail lovers!) in HSV’s match-up with FC Koeln
The only other player that we’ve seen breaking the alleged Hamburger SV/adidas contract is Ruud Van Nistelrooy, who is still faithful to his Nike Tiempo Legends. We can only guess that this is due to Ruud being a relatively new member of the team and a ‘big name’ (literally!), the personal terms of his contract state that he must be allowed to play in his sponsors footwear.
What do you think of this whole alleged agreement?
Smart move by adidas, who have every right to protect their brand image and milk their investment with the club?
Or is it damaging to players morale and distracting to the team?
Let us know in the comments section!
it’s damaging to players morale & distracting to the team.
i’m a real madrid & adidas fans, but i don’t mind seeing ronaldo in his vapors/superflys. ronaldo in something else would be just wrong 🙁
i mean, who dare to separate fabregas from his ctr360s?? even chuck norris would think twice before he actually does that 😀
if they want players to perform at their best then the club should let the players choose the boots they’re comfortable in. I doubt that every player on HSV wearing adidas boots really brings them that much more “brand exposure” to the point where they have to fine players for not abiding.
the club should be more accommodating to it’s players than to it’s sponsors.
i think the players should be allowed to wear whichever boots they want. i remember jens lehmann after an intl tournament was complaining that the he couldnt wear his nikes and that the adidas boots he wore hurt his feet. this could have been jens just being jens, but there is something in it.
I wear puma boots because they fit my feet better than others. i cant imagine having to wear nikes (i wore vapors for a season and had blisters after every match).
I guess this comes to prove that boots really are not a game changer. It’s all in the head, and a marketing ploy. I doubt Ronaldo could not do what he does in afipure’s, or Zidane in Superfly’s.
Good job adidas, you just made me FULLY AWARE that a player wore Nike boots when I had no awareness before this story. You’ve effectively done the opposite of raising your own brand awareness.
I had to do this for college, my university was adidas sponsored and I’m vapor wearer, while I was fully encouraged to wear adidas boots (I even received free pairs) I could wear my vapors as long as I covered all Nike signs on my boots.
Steven ireland has gone back to adizeros.
I´m Peruvian and this guy has been trough a lot of problems lately. All of them caused deliberately by him. He doesn´t seem to think too much before doing something.
It´s really strange to hear that he switch to nike considering that he has worn adidas since even before becoming a profesional player.
If your club has this kind of agreement with a brand (it´s obvious why the biggest clubs don´t do this)and your contract says that you must obbey this rule…”just do it”.
Left winger and german international Marcel Jansen from Hamburger SV doesn’t wear Adidas, too. I sticks to his Puma PowerCat 1.10
this is against human rights.
I don’t agree with this weird contracts over the full kit of a player.
To me a kit is just the jersey, shorts and socks. The boots are a whole different thing because it might determine how the players play and the outcome.
For example if this was backwards and a player was signed to only wear Nike but he really wants to wear the new Adizero since they are the lightest out there this affects him in that way since Nike can’t come up with something as good as Adidas.
I Agree With MisterBroom12, once it hits the fan, adidas are gonna look like plantation owners and Paolo Guerrero was a runaway slave. (No Offensive Racial Intent By The way, Im Black lol)
I agree that a player has to be free in the choice which football boots he will be wearing..
Zhirkov(Chelsea) from NIke -> Adidas Zero (August) and back to Nike ?
i fully agree with guerro deciding to stay with the vapors , adizeros are overated , sure there comfortable and kinda light but id sacrifice that for the good looks of the superb safari superfly . pure genius
I agree players should be able to choose there boots, but can see a relatively big team such as Hamburg requiring any players who don’t have sponsorship deals with other companies to wear boots from their sponsor. I’m sure those who have contracts with other boot makes are able to negotiate with adidas/hamburt.
My college team wore nike, and I was given free boots as well, but I could wear whatever brand I wanted. Our couch just preferred either black or white boots. No crazy colors. He didn’t believe in having an individual stand out from the team
I think all footballers should have the choice to wear their own boots – why be forced to wear something that hurts?
On a separate note, can MisterBroom12 send me some size 11UK boots please? 😛
i just remembered one thing: endorsed players usually got their boots tailored to match their feet, so i doubt that they got blisters whatsoever like we do 🙁
maybe, one of the reason why adidas do this is to promote their boots to un-endorsed players in smaller clubs -or like in MisterBroom12’s university. hoping that some of them who haven’t tried adidas might like it and stick with them.
it’s one of marketing strategy also, am i right?
@MisterBroom12: if u’re UK10, i don’t mind accommodating any spare boots u or ur mates didn’t plan to use 😀
adidas and germany are 1. sports wise there are only 2 brands what matters and it is puma and adidas but in football its adidas. its a german ting
@harry: german bundesliga teams are sponsored by adidas, puma, nike, joma, do you fottball, reebok, etc.
No german thing 😉
football players should be given the right to pick their own boots regardless of the brand that sponsors the team kit.
i believe this is bad publicity for Adidas.
my team kit is Adidas and the majority of my team wears Adidas boots but me and 2 other players stick with our Nike’s.
It’s almost a confidence booster because you know you can trust what’s on your feet since you picked what works best for you.
Adidas, if you’re reading this…this is very petty of you.
they actually look like the adizero new colourway ‘Black Warning’ so he could try again haha
i dont blame adidas. they had an agreement. i dont blame hamburger sv cos they too had an agreement and i assume with that agreement, it will provide them with more funds at their disposal. money talks in this day and age so ya.
only way to prevent this is for the players themselves to use their own money to buy their own boot. dont agree to any sponsorship deals regarding boots then. which means lesser money hahaha
How does this work? If I am a Nike player and play for Hamburg, I either get fined by the club or NIke stops paying me/giving me boots/supporting me… and maybe even take me to court?
really i do agree that u should be able to choose what boots u wear, i have always gone with adidas because they fit my feet better, but if u wanna wear nike’s y not?
It’s nice to know that the marketing at two of the slickest clubs in Spain hasn’t stretched this far: Real Madrid can abide Ronaldo wearing Nike, and Barcelona manage the same with Messi wearing adidas.
Take it back to the 1970s and you get the alternate scenario, with Cruyff peeling off a stripe from his Holland shirt.