As adidas embarks on its next chapter under the direction of a slightly surprising new chief executive, we take a look at why good sportsmanship will prove essential as the company navigates its next steps.

At first, a changing of the guard at Herzogenaurach seemed not unusual. When sports group adidas announced that then-chief executive, Kasper Rørsted, had decided late last summer, in mutual agreement with its supervisory board, to vacate his position to help facilitate a company-wide “restart” in 2023, macroeconomic challenges such as war in Europe and ongoing covid-19 lockdowns in the Chinese market gave the reasoning behind this decision an air of plausibility. This, despite the fact that Mr Rørsted had signed a contract extension with adidas, valid until July 31, 2026, only two years prior. What certainly was not expected at the time, by onlookers at least, was that Mr Rørsted would have departed the business by November 11, to be replaced by Bjørn Gulden, the leader of long-time adidas rival, and neighbour, Puma.

Taking stock

Adidas was originally founded by Adolf “Adi” Dassler out of his mother’s home during the early 1920s. After being joined by an elder brother, Rudolf, the Gebrüder Dassler Schufabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory) business was officially registered in 1924. The enterprise was known as Geda for short. Athletic footwear was the order of the day, beginning with leather football boots and spikes, the early, metal versions of which were wrought by hand in the family-owned workshop of a local friend, Fritz Zehlein. Momentum began to pick up speed after German runner Lina Radke wore a pair of Adi Dassler-developed, 152-gramme sprinting shoes with a goatskin upper, chrome-split sole and lacing down to the toe to win gold in the 800 metres during the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. Mr Dassler collaborated with national athletics coach Josef Waitzer on the design, having struck up a friendship with the former Olympian based on their shared passion for enhancing athletes’ performance through footwear innovation.

All production took place in the Bavarian shoemaking town of Herzogenaurach, where the brothers had been born, raised and continued to live following their return from serving in World War I. Their father, Christoph, had also worked in a shoe factory. However, tensions between the pair escalated towards the end of the 1940s and ultimately drove them apart, leading to Geda’s closure in 1948 and the establishment of two separate, competing, companies. Rudolf Dassler set up Ruda (now Puma) that same year, with his younger sibling entering the arena with his own firm, adidas, in 1949. Both trading names were blended from the first few letters of their founders’ respective forenames and surnames.

As the story goes, the split would go on to divide the town’s loyalties for decades. Roughly two-thirds of Geda employees, particularly those working in product development and manufacturing, were retained by Adi Dassler at the company’s factory next to the town’s train station. Those remaining, mainly sales and administration personnel, stayed with Rudolf at Würzburger Street. The river Aurach ran between their companies’ headquarters, with the adidas factory in the north and Puma’s to the south. The two brothers never spoke again. According to reports, locals’ allegiance to one or the other brand went so far as to influence school-age friendships, the bars they would (or could) frequent and even their choice of spouse. Barbara Smit, author of Pitch Invasion: Adidas, Puma and the Making of Modern Sport, has written that Herzogenaurach consequently earned itself the nickname of the “town of bent necks”, in reference to the habits of its townspeople, who would first look over a stranger’s footwear before deciding whether to engage with them. 

Although both brothers passed away during the 1970s, it would take a handshake and joint football match in September 2009 in support of the International Day of Peace, for employees of either firm to gather officially once again. 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

Adidas had launched its search for Mr Rørsted’s successor in August. By early November, it began to emerge that the company may not have had to look very far. It was revealed that Mr Gulden, the chief executive of Puma since 2013, had chosen not to renew his contract with the company, but would instead allow it to expire along with his management board mandate on December 31 of last year. He still had a lot of energy and wanted to continue in an operational role for another five or even ten years, he said at the time, but felt “that would have been too long for Puma”. That very same day, on November 4, adidas issued a statement which confirmed that talks with Mr Gulden were under way, with the view to making him Mr Rørsted’s replacement. News then followed from Puma that a designated candidate, chief commercial officer Arne Freundt, an employee of over ten years, would take over from Mr Gulden on January 1. “He knows my strengths and weaknesses and I am sure he will do an even better job than me,” the outgoing boss said of    Mr Freundt’s appointment.

November 8, a Tuesday, brought fresh energy to the previous week’s story. In quick succession, adidas made public its decision to name Mr Gulden its next chief executive and Puma made Mr Freundt board chairman and chief executive with immediate effect. It was subsequently announced that Mr Rørsted would be leaving adidas on November 11, with chief financial officer, Harm Ohlmeyer, taking the helm until Mr Gulden’s January 1 start date. Chairman of the company’s supervisory board, Thomas Rabe, welcomed the incoming senior leader, who had previously served as senior vice-president of apparel and accessories at adidas from 1992 to 1999, back into the fold, praising how he had “reinvigorated” the firm’s close rival in recent years. Mr Rabe said that the board was convinced Mr Gulden would lead the business “into a new era of strength”.

Neither adidas nor Puma remain under Dassler ownership today. The latter was first to go public in 1986, joined by the former in 1995. The first signs of any kind of crossover at a senior level came when a grandson of Rudolf, Frank Dassler, ruffled feathers by becoming group general counsel at adidas in 2004. On his retirement in 2018, he became the final representative of the founding family to step away. 

A game of two halves

The first weeks of the new year have had their ups and downs for adidas and, by extension, Mr Gulden. The company’s media relations team told World Footwear in January that its new leader did not plan on speaking to journalists ahead of a press conference to discuss the company’s full-year results for fiscal 2022 on March 8. Yet, the loss of a stripe-heavy trademark infringement case against designer Thom Browne in a New York court on January 12, followed by a days-long hoax email saga involving activists The Yes Men and the Clean Clothes Campaign during Berlin Fashion Week, in which adidas was variously accused of poor labour relations and falsely celebrated for the staged appointment of “a Cambodian former garment worker” to the position of co-chief executive alongside Mr Gulden, meant that the business garnered plenty of headlines nonetheless.

For such a major industry player to cross the Aurach to rejoin adidas means positive attention has inevitably come, too, along with a degree of one-upmanship over Puma, at least for now. The first adidas-made football kits for Italy’s national teams debuted at beginning of January this year as part of a landmark deal with the Italian Football Federation; this had been Puma’s sponsorship domain since 2003. Later that month, doors opened to the first-ever adidas Home of Sport concept store in Asia-Pacific, located in Seoul’s Myeong-dong shopping district. The approximately 2,500-square-metre location houses all adidas brands, including Originals, Terrex, Y-3 and Performance. What is more, the business revealed its first new label for half a century, adidas Sportswear, on February 2. 

Local and market dynamics aside, one thing is already crystal clear. Former professional football and handball player Mr Gulden will certainly be kept on his toes as he moves to raise adidas, and his own career, to new heights. 

Credit: adidas

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