China’s netizens demand end to Nike soccer sponsorship deal over Xinjiang cotton row

蘋果日報 2021/03/27 06:24


Mainland China’s coordinated attacks against Western apparel brands escalated, with an online campaign to demand the nation’s professional soccer bodies scap sponsorship deals with Nike.
While the official Chinese Football Association — a member of FIFA, soccer’s world body — has yet to respond to the calls, netizens have already uploaded a number of photos showing soccer teams with Nike’s logo photoshopped from their jerseys.
Those teams include the Super League’s Shanghai Port and Shanghai Shenhua football clubs. The American sportswear manufacturer is the jersey sponsor of 16 Super League teams, as well as the men’s and women’s national teams. If the contracts were terminated by the CFA as Chinese netizens urged, major compensation would be involved.
The demand for a boycott against Nike came after state-run media outlets called on citizens to spurn Western brands including Nike and H&M earlier this week, citing a statement they published last year against using cotton produced in the northwestern Xinjiang region over humanitarian considerations.
The state-supported boycott was in response to joint sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada on several Xinjiang officials earlier this week over their role in human rights abuses in the region.
Apart from Nike and H&M, brands including Adidas, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Uniqlo and New Balance have also been ensnared in the Xinjiang cotton controversy.
H&M stores in at least three mainland Chinese cities have been forced to close since Thursday, including the company’s flagship store in Beijing and those in Hengshui, Hebei province, and in Jinan in Shandong.
“These kinds of false remarks have greatly hurt the feelings of our Chinese people,” said Guo Changjian, the general manager at one of H&M’s branches in Jinan. “Without the country, there wouldn’t have been the company — or me. So at the moment, our national interests always come first.”
Meanwhile, in Hengshui, Hebei, a crane was reportedly deployed to remove the H&M signage outside a shopping mall on Friday morning.
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