Nigeria: NFF Secures Adidas Deal for JNR Teams

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This Day (Lagos)

6 October 2008
Posted to the web 6 October 2008

Tunde Sulaiman
Lagos

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has secured a fresh deal with their kit sponsors adidas for the German company to extend their sponsorship to the newly introduced national U-13 teams.

Hitherto, the giant German sportswear company had only produced kit items for the senior national teams. But after meeting with them last week, NFF bigwigs were able to convince the company to extend the deal to the colt teams.

Towards this end adidas has agreed to start producing small size apparels to suit the smaller bodies of the U-13 national team players.

THISDAYSports also learnt that in addition to this, adidas has also agreed to include footballs n its package with the NFF. Previously the deal only covered shorts and jerseys, along with training attire.

Also as direct fallout of last week's meeting between the sportswear company and Nigerian football officials, adidas will henceforth change the name on the logos on the jerseys from Nigeria Football Association (NFA) to NFF, which the congress approved a few months ago.

Adidas will also include the logo of the NFF sponsors, Globacom, on the jerseys to be supplied from now on - a decision, which has gone down well with the communications' outfit.

"This is what we've been complaining about all along. How comes we're giving them (NFF) so much money and we're hardly getting any mileage in return? But if what we've been told is correct and our logo is put on the jerseys this is a good step in smoothing over the disagreements between both of us," said a Globacom official over the weekend.

THISDAYSports was made to understand that this was one of the reasons why the nation's second national carrier had often delayed meeting its financial obligations to the Glass House - often leading to messy public spats between the two parties.

Meanwhile, THISDAYSports has exclusively learnt that the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) intends to push for an improved financial package from their kit sponsors at the expiration of their current deal, which ends in 2010.

NFF officials told us that they were reluctant to ask for a hike in the monetary aspect of the contract because the sports firm had been magnanimous enough to adjust it upwards when the present Board asked on assumption of office barely two years ago.

"They (adidas) were kind enough to agree to our request then even though a contract had already been signed with the previous board. They could have turned us down on the grounds that the existing contract did not allow for such, but after listening to us they agreed to push the figures up, which we appreciate.

"This is why we did not ask for any further review of the financial package. But after the contract expires in 2010 we will be ready to review everything including the monetary aspect," explained a highly placed NFF official.

We were also made to understand that the NFF will be praying feverishly for the Eagles to do well in South Africa as it would make it easier for them to make a case for improving the existing contract.

"No one likes an impressive team, but should the Eagles do well then they will become beautiful brides of sorts and adidas will be more than willing to continue doing business with them. This is why we have to ensure that they do very well at the World Cup should they qualify," explained the NFF official.

The adidas contract was first signed during the tenure of the Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima board and was renewed in the first year of the current board.

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