13 December 2023 , 12:31
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Puma have insisted that the decision to end their sponsorship with the Israel national football team is due to "certain KPIs".
The sportswear giant have been the kit provider for the Israel FA since 2018, but has faced protests from the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. The BDS organise boycotts against companies they claim abet Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian land.
The group have demanded the shunning of Puma by consumers ever since they started their link with the Israeli FA. They claimed the motive behind it was because the IFA governs football activity that occurs on settlement land.
Pro-Palestinian groups have had a renewed focus on boycotts in the wake of Israel's ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip. At least 18,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the operation started in response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
The BDS celebrated on Tuesday after news broke that Puma were ending their partnership, claiming their boycott had played a key role. But Puma have now rejected those claims, instead insisting it was due to other factors.
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“The review of the existing roster of national teams along certain KPIs such as commercials and participation in major international tournaments led to a few changes,” the company said in a statement to Quartz.
Israel are currently 75th on FIFA's international men’s rankings, last qualified for the World Cup in 1970 and have never reached a European Championships. Puma have announced they have signed a new "statement team" to take Israel's place.
Puma have faced an ongoing protest from the BDO (Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)While Puma have rejected the claims that the boycott lead to its decision, the BDS has still welcomed the move. The group warned that it should serve as a warning to other companies working with Israel.
"PUMA has been the target of a worldwide BDS campaign since 2018 over its support for Israeli apartheid oppressing millions of Palestinians. The IFA governs and advocates to maintain teams in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land," a statement from the group read.
"Leaked internal messages revealed that PUMA was under tremendous pressure to drop the contract. The years of relentless, global BDS pressure on PUMA and the damage to its image should be a lesson to all companies supporting Israeli apartheid, that complicity has consequences.
"It is also a lesson to the deeply complicit, Western-dominated FIFA, which continues to shield Israel from accountability despite the settlement teams violating its own statutes. We thank the hundreds of grassroots solidarity groups, athletes and teams across the world who supported the call from 215 Palestinian teams to boycott PUMA.
"This boycott win is a bittersweet victory as Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues. But it gives us hope and determination to hold all genocide enablers and apartheid supporters accountable until all Palestinians can live in freedom, justice and equality."