Adidas and Nike have both launched new and innovative football boots based in the run-up to the Fifa World Cup in Brazil. Both products are based on the new knitting technology that they have already applied to their lines of running shoes, raising a dispute between them about intellectual property rights.
Adidas has actually announced two new products: the first knitted football boot, called the Samba Primeknit, as well as the first all-in-one knitted boot and sock, called the Primeknit FS. The latter is a limited-edition hybrid which is said to improve the foot's touch of the ball, while providing a second-skin feel from the calf down to the toe. Players will wear the Primeknit FS during the World Cup in a highly visible black-white-red color combination.
Using Andrés Iniesta of the FC Barcelona team as a testimonial, Nike unveiled a few days ago its new Magista football boot, describing it as a shoe that feels like the extension of the player's body. Based on Nike's Flyknit technology, it features a mid-cut “Dynamic Fit Collar” that is said to increase awareness of the body's movements and its interaction with the ground and the ball.
Separately, Nike has also introduced a new football boot, the Vapor Hyper Agility cleat, that has made use of 3D printing like its predecessor, the Vapor Carbon cleat, for a quick development of the plate and traction system. The new model uses Nike's Flywire cables under the plate and features an amplified “tri-star” stud shape that is said to make it easier for the player to decelerate and change direction.
Nike will sponsor ten of the teams that have qualified for the World Cup, including Brazil. For Adidas, the count has gone down to eight teams from the ten teams that it had sponsored four years ago, but it includes heavyweights such as Argentina, Germany and Spain.
Meanwhile, a report indicates that Nike is about to announce a huge new football sponsorship contract with Manchester United, raising the annual fee that it is paying for the famous English team from £23.5 million a year to more than £60 million (€72.0m-$99.6m) a year for the next ten years. That would be about twice as much as the fee that Adidas is paying for its contract with Real Madrid. Reportedly, ManUnited had asked Adidas, Warrior and Puma to bid on its current contract with Nike, which is set to expire after the 2014-15 season, as the Swoosh was not willing to raise the sponsorship fee to the desired level.
ManUnited is well-known internationally, yet it currently ranks only sixth in the English Premier League and risks being excluded from the European Champions League. The team dropped this year from third to fourth place in the Football Money League, the annual ranking of the major European football clubs compiled by Deloitte based on their financial position. It came after Bayern München, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.
