Manchester City and their extraordinary £1bn agreement with Puma

OH BROTHER

It is well known that the birth of two global sportswear companies, Adidas and Puma, was fuelled by a family feud between two German brothers, Adi and Rudolf Dassler. After working together for 30 years, the pair fell out shortly after the second world war; Rudi founding Puma in 1948 and Adi starting, you guessed it, Adidas in 1949. What started the rift is a point of contention. The most common explanation is that Rudi had an affair with Adi’s wife, Käthe, for which he was never forgiven. Other theories suggest it was Rudolf’s increasing suspicion that his brother was behind his conscription into the German army and thus his short imprisonment by the allies.

The brothers reportedly never spoke again and, like a scene out of a Twix advert, set up rival factories on opposite sides of the river Aurach, which runs through the small town of Herzogenaurach. The global headquarters of Puma and Adidas remain there today, two miles apart. The town is still divided: bars, bakeries and barber shops are all affiliated with one or the other, while the two biggest football clubs, FC Herzogenaurach and ASV Herzogenaurach are sponsored by Puma and Adidas respectively. The two companies appear to detest each other: Lothar Matthäus – son to a family of Puma workers who grew up in Herzogenaurach and played for FC – only signed for Bayern Munich in 1984 on the condition he could continue to wear Puma boots, becoming the first ever player at the Adidas-sponsored Bavarian giants to do so.

Football Daily is not privy to the details as to why Puma has decided to spend £1bn in a partnership for the next 10 years, but it certainly seems like a bold move to fork out £100m-a-year – a record per-year contract for a Premier League club and a gargantuan increase on Puma’s £65m-per-year deal it signed in 2019 with City – on a divisive club awaiting a verdict on 115 financial charges and a side that seems to be, based upon performances last season and at the Copa Gianni, slightly on the wane. Might Puma’s new deal have something to do with topping Adidas’s paltry-looking £60m a-season deal with City rivals Liverpool, signed only a few months ago? It feels like a bit of a stretch, but as City and Liverpool or Adi and Rudi Dassler know so well, ego and tribalism can lead to some wild decisions.

Whatever the reasons behind the extraordinary agreement, City suits must be delighted to have renewed a deal with a company not linked to their owners. “We joined forces with Puma with the ambition to challenge ourselves and go beyond the expectations,” whooped chief suit Ferran Soriano. “We have achieved this and more over the last six seasons. Today’s renewal and extension solidifies our relationship and projects it to an even brighter future.” After watching Chelsea – a club famous for their own financial gymnastics – trouser around £85m for their Copa Gianni triumph, the Puma deal certainly softens the blow for City’s early exit from the tournament. Just how the £1bn will be invested remains to be seen but at least Pep Guardiola can afford a few more delayed kick-offs.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

It’s unacceptable that in the 21st century, people with dwarfism are still used for entertainment at private parties, particularly when public figures are involved. The dignity and rights of our community cannot be a source of amusement under any circumstance” – Carolina Puente, president of the Association for People with Achondroplasia and Other Skeletal Dysplasias, vows to take legal action over the reported hiring of people with dwarfism as entertainment at Lamine Yamal’s recent 18th birthday party, condemning the practice as discriminatory. The player’s representatives are yet to comment.

As an Arsenal supporter for many a decade, I should just like to say that The Auld Triangle pub you referred to (yesterday’s Football Daily), was to those who should easily remember, in fact originally named the Plimsoll Arms. People I knew were always perturbed by its renaming, so despite the fact that it’s now a gastro pub, I’m glad that, name-wise, it’s returning to its roots. Make mine a Guinness!” – Colin Grant (and others).

When I first came to London in 1997, I moved into a house on St Thomas’s Road, opposite the Auld Triangle. The landlord was grouchy when it was busy, but really approachable when it was quiet (non-match days). Arsenal fans really sustained that pub, because in the off-season, sometimes we would be the only patrons in the pub. I remember quiz nights with the bullet-headed, no-necked Robbie (‘It’s ahnly a paaaahnd!’), an intimidating figure, but a stand-up comedian in his own right. Happy days” – Paul Chan.

To describe Cole Palmer as scooting through ‘Wythenshawe high street’ (yesterday’s Football Daily) is to misunderstand the type of settlement that Wythenshawe is. As an overspill housing estate on the edge of the Greater Manchester conurbation, its pencil-pushing post-war town planners did not see fit to install anything as grand as a high street, but a civic centre grandly named the ‘Forum’ and pedestrianised shopping area can be found sitting nearish to the middle of this somewhat amorphous suburban mass. I wouldn’t expect a London-centric, anti-northern email to be aware of all this, and this lazy journalism points to a wider decline at the centre of our once great, free press” – Mike Lovelady.

View image in fullscreen Wythenshawe, earlier. Photograph: Molly Darlington/Reuters

If there’s one thing to be thankful about at the Copa Gianni, it’s that Donald Trump didn’t squeeze his corpulent rump into a full Chelsea strip first, like the last guy to sneak his way into the Blues’ cup-raising celebrations” – Declan Hackett.

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Declan Hackett. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.

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