Popular sports brand Puma will stop sponsoring Israel’s national football team in 2024, according to a company spokesperson.
Though the move was planned since last year and is not related to consumer boycott calls against Israel amid the Gaza war, according to the spokesperson, the German sportswear firm has long faced boycott calls over its brand alliance with the Israel Football Association (IFA).
The boycott calls have intensified during Israel’s two-month genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 18,000 Palestinians.
In a statement emailed to the Reuters news agency, a Puma spokesperson said the company’s contracts with several federations, including Serbia and Israel, were due to expire in 2024 and would not be renewed.
Puma first signed its contract with the IFA to provide kit to players in 2018. Since then, the company has faced boycott calls from activists, who say the IFA also includes teams based in Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.
The firms supportive of Israel have faced growing boycott calls by the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement before and during the Gaza war.
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