By Mark Baber
April 1 – PUMA and the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) have renewed their partnership, whilst FIGC President Carlo Tavecchio, central to the racism scandals plaguing Italian football, focuses on the need for Juventus to drop their €443 million civil suit.
PUMA have sponsored the Italian National team since 2003 but the new deal deepens the relationship as PUMA has “extended and increased its marketing rights as well as retaining the exclusive Master License to actively manage the entire global licensing portfolio of FIGC assets.”
“PUMA will also continue as the official technical supplier supporting all associated FIGC teams.”
Tavecchio told a press conference in Turin that “the partnership extension with PUMA represents a very important result for the FIGC.”
“It will benefit us greatly in affirming our brand at an international level and inasmuch as it will see both organizations committed to developing special projects.
“The FIGC has defined a 360 development plan that is effective across the National A Team to the youth teams, from women’s football to social responsibility projects.
“In addressing these ambitious plans, PUMA will be a highly valued partner that we are proud to have with us for a long time.”
Björn Gulden, PUMA’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “Extending this long standing partnership with the FIGC is extremely important to PUMA and is another key step towards our goal to become the Fastest Sport Brand in the World.”
“The FIGC with all its heritage and class is a major ingredient in our football portfolio and there is a clear vision amongst their new senior management that we share and are enthusiastic to support.
“The coming years will see a deeper commitment from PUMA to the FIGC and we see great commercial opportunity through a partnership that has continued to grow yet retains great potential.”
There was some limited recognition of the racism infecting Italian football, which saw Tavecchio banned for six months by UEFA over comments about African players eating bananas, as PUMA’s statement claimed: “Through this agreement, the FIGC and PUMA will actively work together on a number of projects to grow the image, profile and commerciality of the FIGC on a global level. This will entail shared marketing investment allocated to core areas of focus within the FIGC programme including youth development, women’s football, countering racism and the internationalisation of the FIGC brand.”
The FIGC have also renewed a distribution add-on to its deal with Italian public broadcaster Rai for a further four years including world-wide rights to friendly games, under-21 games and a number of youth tournaments.
Whilst Rai is currently the target of a take-over attempt by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s empire, Tavecchio has been enmeshed in a dispute with the Agnelli family over Juventus’ €443 million civil suit aimed at getting compensation for having been punished in the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal.
Juventus officials recently escaped prison, having managed to string legal proceedings beyond the statute of limitations and the Federation believes Juve’s claim for compensation for lost revenue and damage to their reputation will lead nowhere as the court has not acquitted the guilty parties of key charges.
However Tavecchio made it clear he wants Juventus to drop their suit (which would bankrupt the Federation if it succeeded), hinting at the possibility of a counter-suit and also holding out the carrot of a consideration of talks over Juve’s two revoked league totals telling local media, “We have to get rid of the claim for damages and then we are open to negotiate with Juventus [over the two Scudetti].”
Ironically, the statute of limitations which saved Juve officials from prison, may also provide an obstacle to the changing of the sporting tribunal’s decision to revoke Juve’s 2004-05 and 2005-06 titles.
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