By Ayo Kehinde
The crisis plaguing Team Nigeria at the ongoing Olympics in Tokyo took another turn for the worse as German sports wear manufacturing giants PUMA terminated its four -year contract with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN on Wednesday.
In a letter dated Wednesday 4th August 2021 and signed by the company’s director Manuel Edlheimb, PUMA said it was officially notifying the Athletics Federation of Nigeria of its termination of Sponsoring and Licensing Agreement.
It read, in part, “We are referring to the licensing and sponsoring agreement signed between our company and your federation.
“As a direct consequence of the recent developments, particularly at the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020 and pursuant to clauses 9.2 and 7.3 of the Agreement, we hereby terminate the Agreement with immediate effect.
“PUMA especially declares to be discharged from any or all obligations towards all stakeholders involved and reserves all rights against these entities and individuals”.
The Athletics Federation of Nigeria under the leadership of Engr Ibrahim Gusau signed a 4 -year contract with PUMA in 2019 and was due to expire in 2022.
Part of the contract is that PUMA will supply apparels to all age categories to Nigeria’s Athletics team for four years at no cost.
In addition, gold medalists at the Olympic Games will earn $15,000, silver medalists will get $5,000 while a bronze medal will fetch athletes wearing the PUMA apparel at the games $3000. But all that is gone with the wind of politics and internal wrangling within the sports sector.
For one, the minister of Youth and Sports Sunday Dare had vowed in a statement that Nigerian Athletics athletes to the Games will not wear PUMA because of a leadership tussle between the Ibrahim Gusau led AFN board and the one being championed by the minister.
On the back of the deal they had with the AFN, PUMA brought the kits to the Olympics
Unfortunately, the people they had the deal with in the AFN were tossed out of the Board the Nigerian way.
So when PUMA still delivered the kits to Japan the Sports Minister or the NOC President, Ahmed Gumel refused the athletes to use them/shared to them
Several efforts were made to give the athletes the PUMA kits including shipping bags of kits to Tokyo through the Nigerian Embassy in Japan but Mr Dare wrote to the Ambassador stopping him from sending the kits to the athletes.
It will be recalled that on September 3, 2020 the Department of State Services DSS cleared the Ibrahim Gusau led board and its marketing firm Dynamic Sporting Solutions Nigeria Limited of receiving money meant for the AFN
