Friendly Match Between Adidas And Puma
End of the rivalry? OK, it’s time to work together hand in hand, to fight Nike……
Employees of Germany’s rival sportswear companies Adidas and Puma symbollically ended the firms’ 60-year-old family feud on Monday with a friendly football match to mark the UN-backed Peace One Day initiative.
The game, in which employees of both firms played in both teams, included board chairmen Herbert Hainer of Adidas and Jochen Zeitz of Puma and was played in the small northern Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach near Nuremberg, where both companies maintain their headquarters. Hainer played in attack, while Zeitz was goalkeeper.
The game was meant to bring a symbolic end to one of Germany’s most infamous family feuds, which began in 1948 when a row between brothers Rudolf and Adolf Dassler split the family sportswear business, already a major supplier in the field, into two camps. Rudolf founded Puma in 1948, while Adolf, or Adi, Dassler founded Adidas in 1949. Their rivalry divided the Dasslers’ home town of 23,000 people, where competing factories were built on opposite sides of the Aurach river.
