The news comes at a time when calls for consumer boycotts of Israel and companies supporting the regime have intensified since October 7.
Sports brand Puma is to terminate its sponsorship of Israel’s national football team next year, a spokesperson for the German company has said.
The decision was taken in 2022 as part of Puma’s new “fewer-bigger-better strategy” and allegedly not connected to calls for consumer boycotts following Israel’s military assault on Gaza, according to media reports.
“While two newly signed national teams – including a new statement team – will be announced later this year and in 2024, the contracts of some federations such as Serbia and Israel will expire in 2024,” the spokesperson is reported to have said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
🚨BREAKING: Following years of campaigning, including sustained actions by PSC branches, @PUMA has been forced to end its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association.
This is an important victory that shows the power of the solidarity movement. (thread)#BDS #BoycottPuma pic.twitter.com/FYpeYmYg0a
— PSC (@PSCupdates) December 12, 2023
The spokesperson added that the move was in line with regular timelines for designing and developing team jerseys, Reuters further reports.
But the news comes at a time when calls for consumer boycotts of Israel and companies supporting the regime have intensified since October 7.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding part of the BDS movement, welcomed the development saying it was a “bittersweet victory as Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues.”
In a statement on the BDS website, it said Puma has been the target of a worldwide BDS campaign since 2018 over “its support for Israeli apartheid oppressing millions of Palestinians.”
Costs and reputational damage due to years of worldwide #BoycottPUMA campaign have forced @PUMA to finally end its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association. #GazaGenocide enablers and apartheid supporters take note. End your complicity now rather than later. pic.twitter.com/dYGX1OnF19
— PACBI – BDS movement (@PACBI) December 12, 2023
It said the Israeli Football Association (IFA) governs and advocates to maintain teams in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
“Leaked internal messages revealed that Puma was under tremendous pressure to drop the contract”, the statement added.
It said “the years of relentless, global BDS pressure on Puma and the damage to its image should be a lesson to all companies supporting Israeli apartheid, that complicity has consequences.”
Palestine Chronicle
This is wonderful news! Whatever their reason for ending the sponsorship deal, one thing’s for certain… there’s power in numbers!