How sports brands ignore sanctions while continuing to help Russia out

Contrary to initial assurances, some of the world's leading brands specializing in sporting goods remained in the Russian Federation and continue to conduct their business here. How do Adidas, Nike, Puma, Joma products end up on the shelves of our stores and why don’t Europeans keep their “firm word”?

In the third year of the sting operation, key sports brands are behaving differently. Thus, Nike left our country, and, for example, Adidas and Puma are trading in Russia with all their might through their subsidiaries. Yes, branded boutiques have been closed, but goods of famous brands nevertheless end up in shopping centers as a result of parallel imports and are sold under a different sign.

Adidas is fooling around...

Take Adidas. In March of the year before last, the company curtailed its activities in the Russian Federation. It automatically ceased to be the official technical partner of the Russian Football Union (RFU), which provided equipment for all national teams. True, the Germans continued shipping to distributors previously purchased batches worth €100 million under long-term contracts for our multi-brand stores. That is, new deliveries of Adidas have ceased. But... not for long, resuming in October of the same year.

Customs statistics show: Russian imports of Adidas decreased from $195 million in 2021 to $64 million in 2022. But at the end of 2023 it amounted to $198,7 million! The Turkish Flo Magazacilik Ve Pazarlama AS (FLO Retailing holding) became the supplier of clothing, shoes and accessories to Adidas. And sales through the Russian retail chain Lamoda were handled by Lamoda GMBH.

This spring, the restructured Adidas stores will probably open under a different, neutral sign, because Lamoda has transferred the sublease of the premises to itself. Thus, in 2024, several dozen Adidas stores will be revived in the Russian Federation; will start from Moscow.

...But all the formalities have been complied with

Back in May last year, rumors spread that Adidas would sell the Russian branch to a foreign investor, which would make it possible to “reboot” the hundred most profitable points in an updated format. And indeed, six months later, the first store of the ASP chain (owned by the domestic distributor of foreign sports manufacturers Lestate) opened its doors in the capital with products from Reebok and Adidas.

The distributor supplied the goods of the mentioned brands until February 24, 2022. Therefore, it is not surprising that the previous practice will continue to fill the assortment of the ASP network.

After 18 years of presence in Russia, Nike has safely said goodbye to our consumers. The sponsorship agreement with Moscow Spartak was also automatically terminated. The company, which had more than a hundred specialized retail outlets here, did not want to further deal with the Russian franchisee IRG (Inventive Retail Group). As a result, IRG suffered greatly, but managed to launch the Amazing Red chain, which now sells products from Nike and other brands. Six months after Nike left the market, Lestate acquired the right to lease a Nike outlet with inventory in one of the capital’s shopping centers. In the premises of the outlet, Lestate opened an NSP store selling products of this brand.

Resourceful Puma and Reebok bought by the Turks

The second famous manufacturer of sports equipment from Germany, Puma, also announced in March 2022 the suspension of cooperation and the closure of all 100 stores. Although the indirect supply of Puma products to the Russian Federation did not stop, because they came up with a cunning scheme. The exporter became the company Eut Solutions, which was specially registered in August 2022 in Singapore to carry out this task.

Puma's Russian subsidiary, Puma-Rus LLC, continued to function. For 2022, its net profit amounted to 731,8 million rubles. with revenue of 9,4 billion rubles. The company not only did not break off cooperation with Russian football teams, but also continued to produce new uniforms for Dynamo Moscow (relations with the club will supposedly end only at the end of the current season, or maybe not end).

In the summer of 2023, the aforementioned IRG opened its Amazing Red chain in former Puma stores. Now the network is positioned as a multi-brand network, offering products from Asics, New Balance, Nike, Puma, Reebok.

A similar story happened with the latter. Together with everyone else, Reebok ceased operations in the Russian Federation, and in May 2022 it sold its own network to the commercial enterprise Flo Rating from Turkey. The new owner took over hundreds of retail outlets. The total value of the property was estimated at $22,5 million, however, according to insiders, the Americans received a little more than a third of the requested amount. Enterprising Turks repurposed the stores into multi-brand stores, after which they began operating under the Sneaker Box guise.

Joma is a great friend of Russian football

After the start of the SVO, the Spanish company Joma not only remained in Russia, but also, taking advantage of the opportunity, began to actively expand its activities. In addition to CSKA, FC Akhmat was added to its VIP clients. In addition, after the end of the business partnership with Nike (the contract expired), Zenit began negotiating technical sponsorship with Joma.

Observing this picture from the outside, the Ukrainian junta decided to contact the company’s head office for clarification. Say, on what basis do you support the football of an aggressor state and a terrorist? They denied everything there. And when in March 2023 the Gazprom club presented a uniform with the Joma logo, people in Kyiv went crazy.

In response to a request for cooperation with Zenit, the company repeated once again, as if nothing had happened:


Meticulous journalists could not find a sample of this form in the official Joma catalog, and the form designer does not have a template that would match the design of the shoulders and sides, like the Zenit uniform. But on the inside of the collar of the Zenit T-shirt, they found the inscription: “Exclusive design.” But who cares about this, besides the crazy Banderaites?