Nike have started arbitration against Juventus for alleged breaches of their sponsorship agreement.
The American sports company has had a famously rocky relationship with the Serie A title holders, but has now officially launched legal action against the club due to “alleged breaches of the sponsorship agreement of 16 November 2001.”
The Board of Directors at Juventus has agreed to the arbitration.
Though the details of the disagreement has not yet been publicly released, the feud between the two brands has been on-going since 2006, as part of the aftermath of the Calciopoli scandal.
Nike became Juventus’ sponsors in 2001, but when the Bianconeri were relegated to Serie B in 2006 as punishment for their alleged part in Calciopoli, Nike allegedly wanted to distance themselves from the disgraced club. Even though Juventus were eventually promoted back in Serie A, the relationship between the two brands had already been strained.
At one point the two sides were even forced to renegotiate their contract, which was reported reduced to €11 million, almost half of their current contract.
By 2012, the relationship deteriorated more over continued arguments surrounding Calciopoli scandal-related issues, specifically Juventus’ controversial Scudetto count. Nike refused to recognized three stars – to signify 30 Scudetti wins – on Juventus’ jersey; a decision that FIGC sided with the clothing manufacture on.
However, rumours began to emerge the decision to recognize 28 wins, instead of 30, was actually due to pressure from Serie A rivals Inter, another Nike sponsored team.
Instead of giving into the Nike-designed kits, Juventus retaliated by request the phrase “30 sul campo” – 30 on the pitch – be added on the kits instead of the traditional gold stars, with the Agnelli family leading the campaign.
The team’s overruling of traditional kit conventions continued to put stress on the partnership, until it reached the tipping point when Juventus publicly turned on Nike.
In 2013, Juventus pre-emptively announced their new sponsor: Adidas, who would start manufacturing kits for the 2015/16 season. However, the announcement was made way before Nike and Juventus’ contract was set to expire, in June 2015.
It was bad enough when Juventus announced their partnership with Adidas – Nike’s major market competitor – but to make matter worse, the new partnership between Adidas and Juventus is supposedly almost double the current agreement between Nike and Juventus: an estimated €33 million plus bonuses, for a total of approximately €39 million.
The contract will begin July 1, 2015 and runs for six years.
But before the happy new partnership can come to fruition, Juventus must deal with the arbitration launched by Nike, and they plan to deal with them head-on.
President Andrea Agnelli has already made a statement about the impending proceedings claiming, “Juventus will be established in the said arbitration, arguing [our] case. Nike has not provided concrete evidence to support their case.”
And even though the full extent of both side’s cases is yet to be made public, based on their past history, Nike and Juventus are in for one messy divorce.
