Adidas Halts Partnership With Russian Football Federation

German multinational corporation, Adidas is the latest establishment to react to Russia’s invasion of neighbouring country, Ukraine.

The Vladimir Putin-led country has been listed for a number of sanctions since it invaded Ukrain in what the president describes as a ‘special military action’ on Ukraine. The sanctions range from trading relationships to other diplomatic relationships. However, other private establishments have joined in punitive reaction to Russia’s attack.

Recent updates reveal that the German multinational corporation has suspended its 14-year partnership with the Russian Football Federation. This is coming only briefly after the world football body, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), reacted by suspending the Russian football body.

Adidas has joined other establishments like Visa, Maersk, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, BP, Etsy, Airbnb, Shell, Netflix, Mastercard among others.

The number of organisations taking action against Russia is growing and this is in reaction to the growing war between Russia and Ukraine. According to Forbes Middle East, the International Olympics Committee had on Monday, 28th February, requested that sports organisations around the world ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing in any competition both regionally and globally.

On Friday, 25th February, the Eurovision song contest banned Russia from competing in this year’s competition, disclosing that it was not in support of the country’s move to invade Ukraine. And Formula 1 also cancelled the Russian Grand Prix for 2022.

This is also coming up as the U.S. and other Western allies voted to remove some Russian banks from SWIFT over the weekend, and performed a number of sanctions on Russian financial institutions. President Vladimir Putin has also been directly served sanction with the United State of America freezing his personal assets and those of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other wealthy Russian oligarchs.

Adidas’s suspension of its partnership with the Russian Football Federation is coming after the two entities had only renewed partnership in 2018. It is also notable that this is coming when preparations for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are already on the way.

The football associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have also said that they will refuse to play against Russia in any competition.