Adidas said it had reintroduced some unspecified products at Sports Direct stores, after “productive discussions” with the retailer. The two had been at loggerheads since Adidas decided earlier this year to no longer supply Sports Direct with upmarket replica shirts. David Forsey, chief executive of Sports Direct International (SDI), agreed that the latest talks had been «encouraging.»
Only a few days ago Forsey was still complaining to The Daily Telegraph about “anti-competitive” behavior by Adidas and describing the company's chief executive, Herbert Hainer, as “disingenuous.” Adidas apparently did not deliver all of its on-field merchandise for the World Cup to Sports Direct. The newspaper even suggested that SDI had held talks with U.K. anti-competition authorities on the matter but Adidas said it had not received any enquiries from such authorities.
The SDI chief argued at the time that Adidas' stance was preventing SDI from making an offer for Office, an influential British retailer of sports lifestyle footwear, due to fears that Adidas would quit supplying Office if it was taken over by SDI. The report indicated that Adidas was already refusing to supply its Originals range to USC, a fashion chain owned by SDI.
However, the relationship appears to have improved markedly in the last two weeks, since Hainer made the trip to England to visit the new Sports Direct flagship store in an attractive location on London's Oxford Street (the former HMV store). Sports Direct apparently managed to bring across the message that it had been working more intensely on product presentation in the last years, particularly in its new and larger stores, as outlined in our feature on Sports Direct's strategy last year (Sporting Goods Intelligence Europe – Vol. 24 n°38,39).
