BDS hails Puma’s decision to end Israeli football sponsorship

The Palestinian-led movement Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) has celebrated Puma’s decision to end its sponsorship of the Israeli national football team in what it claims is a victory for the pressure campaign.

The pro-Palestine campaign group said the German sportswear firm will terminate its deal with the Israel Football Association (IFA) from next year.

The move comes after more than 200 Palestinian sports teams pressured the association from operating in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The Boycott PUMA campaign successfully damaged PUMA’s image, its most important asset, by associating it with Israel’s decades-long apartheid regime,” the BDS movement said in a statement.

“As Israel began its ongoing Gaza genocide, which has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of footballers, PUMA’s image, and bottom line, took another blow.”

In 2018, the brand was subject to a global boycott campaign that lasted five years to pressure the brand to cut ties with the Israeli sports association.

Activists across the world held ‘days of action’ and occupied Puma offices and shops, while sports teams such as the Scottish Gaelic football team and Malaysia’s largest university, Universiti Teknologi MARA, scrapped contracts with the brand owing to Puma’s links with Israel.

Ireland’s largest sportswear chain, O’Neills, was also forced to remove Puma-branded products from its stores following a protest planned by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Confirming the decision to drop the deal, Puma claimed that the company’s contracts with federations in Israel and Serbia were already due to expire in 2024.

A spokesperson told news agency Reuters: “While two newly signed national teams – including a new statement team – will be announced later this year and in 2024, the contracts of some federations such as Serbia and Israel will expire in 2024.”

According to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Puma lost millions of pounds in business in the UK since the BDS boycott campaign began.

A spokesperson from the Palestine Solidarity Movement told The New Arab: “This is a major victory for the Palestinian-led BDS movement.

“PSC has been proud to lead the Puma boycott campaign in the UK, with our local branches picketing Puma stores over several years. In the genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of sports people, including children, and destroyed sports facilities as part of its war crimes.

“There can be no business as usual for companies that are complicit in Israel’s military occupation of Palestine and system of apartheid against Palestinians. Our campaigns will continue until we end all UK complicity, whether it be companies, public bodies or our Government.”