The A.S. Roma football team has decided to break up its sponsorship contract with Kappa, well before its scheduled expiration in June 2017, apparently in order to let in a new unnamed big-ticket sponsor. Observers see a relationship between this move and efforts by the new American shareholders of the Roman club, which have acquired 60 percent of its shares, to increase its notoriety in the U.S. and other countries around the world. The break-up is marked by bitter overtones as the club's management blamed it on the allegedly poor quality of some of the jerseys supplied by Kappa. Marco Boglione, president of Basicnet, which owns Kappa, said he was being forced to take the matter to court. He noted that none of the sports clubs with which Kappa was been working in the last 34 years, including Juventus and Ajax, had ever terminated a contract prematurely. 

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