Adidas follows Nike’s lead and stops service to Iran’s soccer team

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Updated: JULY 31, 2018 03:31
New Adidas cleats on display at New York store, 2005 (photo credit: CHIP EAST / REUTERS)
New Adidas cleats on display at New York store, 2005
(photo credit: CHIP EAST / REUTERS)
The German sportswear company Adidas is the latest European business to pull out of Iran’s increasingly volatile market due to pending US sanctions on the mullah regime in Tehran.
According to a Sunday article in the Iranian regime-controlled Tehran Times, “Iran national football team players will not wear Adidas after the German sportswear manufacturer has decided to deny Iran with access to its services.”
The newspaper added that “Adidas has decided to follow in Nike’s footsteps.”
President Mehdi Taj, the head of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI), “accused Adidas of disrespecting the Iranian people and demanded a formal apology from the manufacturer,” wrote the Times.
The US company Nike decided in June that it would not provide cleats to the Iranian soccer team prior to the World Cup due to economic sanctions targeting the clerical regime.
The multinational corporation Nike said in a statement: “The sanctions mean that, as a US company, we cannot provide shoes to players in the Iran national team at this time.”
Powerful US sanctions are set to be reimposed on Iran in August and November. The pending sanctions against the Islamic Republic regime has forced global companies to choose between Iran’s economy – and face potent economic penalties – or the significantly larger US economy. The US market amounts to $19 trillion, in contrast to Iran’s $400 billion market.