BAYERN MUNICH STAR Mario Goetze has landed himself in hot water again for wearing Nike products, this time on duty with Germany who are sponsored by rival firm Adidas.
The 21-year-old is in trouble for wearing sports socks with the Nike logo plastered over his shins while with the Germany squad who play Ireland tonight in a World Cup qualifiers in Cologne.
“Things like that shouldn’t happen,” said Germany’s team manager Oliver Bierhoff as sponsors Adidas pump several million euros into the German Football Federation (DFB) each year.
“The players are allowed to wear whatever boots they want, but otherwise we are committed to our partners, of course.”
Goetze, who has a personal sponsorship deal with Nike, admitted he had blundered, but insisted it was an innocent mistake.
“They are compression socks that I have worn for some time because of my injury,” he told German daily Bild having just returned from a groin injury. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t want to provoke anyone or advertise something.
“This sort of thing won’t happen again by me.”
This is not the first time Goetze has fallen offside with Adidas.
In July, he was fined 20,000 euros by his club Bayern Munich, who are also sponsored by Adidas, after wearing a Nike t-shirt, with a big logo across his chest, at his first press conference at the European giants.
After his latest faux pas, Adidas spokesman Oliver Brueggen told SID, an AFP subsidiary, they “assume something like this will not happen again” and said the matter had been dealt with internally by the DFB.
