Jan 21, 2021 07:07

by Chris

Nike Has Lost More Than 40 Important Players In Past 6 Months - Updated

Jan 21, 2021

by Chris

Update: We have been sent a list featuring not less than 42 players that Nike has lost recently by our follower @m.eisenrigler. It becomes obvious that Nike is calculated by Nike not to extend the contracts with many players. It will be interesting to see if it continues in 2021.

Full List: Players Lost By Nike In Past Few Months

Premier League

Manchester United

Anthony Martial
Alex Telles

Manchester City

Raheem Sterling
Phil Foden
Kyle Walker
Fernandinho
Ederson
Riyad Mahrez?

Liverpool

Gomez
Thiago
Elliot

Everton

Calvert-Lewin

Arsenal

Saka
Smith-Rowe
Willian
Lacazette

Tottenham

Vinicius

Chelsea

James

Aston Villa

Barkley

Crystal Palace

Wolves

Adama Traoré

La Liga

Barcelona

Mingueza

Real Madrid

Asensio
Varane
Ramos

Betis

Lainez

Celta Vigo

Iago Aspas

Serie A

Juventus

Arthur
Alex Sandro

Inter

Brozovic

Milan

Ibrahimovic

Ligue 1

PSG

Neymar

Lille

Weah

Bundesliga

Bayern

Lewandowski
Coman
Nianzou

Leipzig

Mukiele
Adams

Bayer 04

Schick
Diaby
Tapsoba

Others

David Neres

As an avid follower of football, our website and possibly also our boot stats site Football Boots DB, you surely know that Nike has been the leading football boots brand since several years. However, now Nike seems to change its strategy - the Swoosh apparently lost various of its best players, and that just in the past six months.

Adidas, Nike and Puma supply the boots for around 97% of footballers

In 2020-2021, the situation on the boot market is as follows - Nike is sponsoring more than half of all players of Europe's biggest leagues with around 53%, Adidas comes second with around 37%, Puma comes third with 7%. All other brands except the big three account for just 3%.

Players Who Left / Could Leave Nike

Players who have apparently / officially left Nike does not only include a handful of medium-attractive athletes (in terms of marketability) but superstars like Neymar, Lewandowski, Thiago Alcantara and Sergio Ramos.

We have counted more than 20 popular players who have / are set / were rumored to leave Nike just in the past 6 months.

Mercurial NOT For Life? Franck Ribéry To Leave Nike?!

Nov 15, 2020

Nike has changed its strategy

It is pretty certain that Nike did not get short of money unexpectedly to pay those athletes but that the reason is that the Swoosh has changed its strategy. It seems like Nike do not want to sponsor athletes whatever it costs bit let run out deals they think that are too expensive.

In fact, with that large amount of players leaving Nike currently, we think that it is possible that Nike comes together with players to let some contracts end ahead of schedule. We also think that it is sure that Nike does not want to pay many of their players as much as before - see Ribery, Ibrahimovic or Raheem Sterling as examples.

Two brands are snapping the players Nike is losing - Adidas and Puma. In fact, Puma's CEO said that their new strategy is to sign more superstars to make the brand more attractive.

Of course, with thousands of footballers playing the Top 5 leagues (around 3,000), Nike is still sponsoring more than half of all players of them.