US sportswear company Nike has agreed a five-year partnership with the South African Football Association to become the governing body’s new technical sponsor from February 1.
Under the deal, the financial terms of which were undisclosed, Nike will design and develop kits for South Africa’s men’s and women’s national football teams, along with performance and training equipment. Nike will provide a limited-edition kit to all South African teams competing until December 2014 and reveal the 2015-16 kit in November 2014, with an assortment of supporter-wear available from early January. The partnership also provides SAFA with access to the Nike Football Training Centre in Soweto, Johannesburg, where the organisation’s technical team will have the opportunity to identify and nurture grassroots talent.
Puma ended its contract as SAFA’s kit supplier last October amid match-fixing allegations concerning the national team from its friendly warm-up matches in preparation for the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa. Puma, which replaced rival Adidas as South Africa’s kit provider in 2012, criticised the SAFA’s methods of dealing with the match-fixing controversy in explaining its decision to end the partnership after less than two years.
In October, SAFA announced its Vision 2022 initiative, which aims to have all the country’s national teams ranked inside the top three in Africa and top 20 in the world over the next decade. The governing body’s president, Danny Jordaan, believes the tie-up with Nike can play a key role in realising this ambition.
“It is an important step in the restructuring process underway at SAFA,” he said. “It is fitting that Nike has joined forces with us just at the time when things are about to change for the better and I want to assure Nike that its faith in SAFA will prove justified.”
South Africa, which failed to qualify for this summer’s Fifa World Cup, joins Brazil, England, France, South Korea, Netherlands, Portugal and the USA among the international football teams that count Nike as a kit supplier.