A century-long battle. Born in the family – between two brothers – extended to the football fields – those trodden by Johan Cruijff and Franz Beckenbauer – and now extended to the offices of the upper floors of the two companies, those occupied by the CEOs. With effects also on the stock exchange lists, in particular of the German one in Frankfurt. Adidas, in fact, has decided to wrest the managing director Bjorn Gulden from the competitor Puma. an indiscretion of Bloomberga first half confirmation from Adidas – who called Gulden a potential successor to current CEO Kasper Rorsted – and a second half confirmation from Puma – who announced Arne Freundt, current chief commercial officer as Gulden’s successor – to ignite Frankfurter Brse: Adidas shares closed up 21%.
The origins of commercial rivalry
Gulden, therefore, ready to go home: the manager, before joining Puma in 2013, had in fact worked for Adidas with the role of senior vice president of clothing and accessories. Snatching each other’s managers is no surprise to anyone who knows the long rivalry between Adidas and Puma. even originated from a history that has lasted for 100 years. Since, in the 1920s, the brothers Rudolf and Adolf – known as Adi – Dassler started producing leather shoes: first by hand sewing them in their mother’s laundry, then by opening a small shoe factory – the Gebrder Dassler Sportschuhfabrik – near Nuremberg, specializing in spiked soccer shoes and spiked athletic shoes, to be used for the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. Success, however, will come from another Olympics, that of 1936 in Berlin: Jesse Owens wins four gold medals wearing the shoes of the two brothers. At the peak of success, however, the Second World War arrives and the two brothers also separate, also divided by different political opinions. Everyone goes his own way, founding two different companies while remaining in the same city, the small Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach: Rudolf founds Puma, Adi l’Adidas.
The epic Adidas-Puma clashes on the football fields
Before becoming a manager, Bjorn Gulden was a Norwegian professional footballer. And it was on the football fields that the rivalry between Adidas and Puma experienced its most epic battles. The event that best explains the competition between the two giants of sportswear has its own setting in Bavaria: on 7 July 1974, at the Olympiastadion in Munich, the final between the Netherlands and West Germany is played. The two teams have Adidas as technical sponsor, but the captain of the Orange, Cruijff, appears on the pitch with a different uniform from that of his teammates, with only two stripes on his arms and not the three that have always characterized Adidas. In those years, Puma had in fact decided to focus on individual sponsorships, deciding to invest in the white Pel of Holland. Who, by virtue of the commercial link, decides to take the field with Puma shoes, the orange shirt without one of the three stripes and with adhesive tape on the chest to cover the characteristic flower that distinguishes the Adidas brand. Stories of other times, of a romantic football that was beginning, however, to be governed by sponsors. The frame made of white and orange shirts on the green carpet of the world final, however, makes that commercial battle immortal: it is safe to bet that Gulden’s change of shirt – although on the stock market it has increased the capitalization of Adidas by a few billion – in a few year will not arouse the same nostalgia.
