Nigeria agrees $8.5m adidas kit deal

Nigeria will end its 11-year association with Nike and return to adidas, after agreeing an $8.5m-a-year equipment deal that the Nigeria Football Federation says is the biggest in African football.

Former NFF president, Ibrahim Gusau, who resigned along with the federation’s executive committee on Thursday, disclosed the agreement at a news conference in Abuja, saying adidas will pay the federation $4.5m annually in cash and provide another $4m worth of equipment for Nigeria’s national teams.

The NFF will also receive a 20 per cent royalty on merchandise sales, a clause that could push the value of the agreement well beyond the guaranteed $8.5m annual figure.

According to Gusau, the contract has already been signed, though it was originally scheduled to be announced in September, and it tops any previous kit deal signed by an African country.

“It is about the highest kit sponsorship in Africa. No other country in Africa has that kind of sponsorship,” Gusau told reporters.

“Adidas will pay Nigeria $4.5 million every year in cash and then they will provide kit worth $4 million every year.”

The package represents the largest publicly disclosed current kit-supply agreement for an African national football federation, with Morocco’s deal with Puma, reportedly valued at $1.7m, previously the highest publicly known figure on the continent.

Gusau said Nigeria’s outgoing Nike contract, signed in 2015, had become grossly inadequate for the federation’s needs.

“As (former) president, I cannot gift someone a jersey because we met a contract that has been running for 11 years on the same terms worth $500,000 in cash and $1 million in kit supply. $500,000 in 2015 and still $500,000 in 2026. It is like you have nothing,” he said.

Nigeria first signed with Nike in April 2015 after its earlier adidas deal was cancelled over breaches during the 2014 World Cup.

Gusau said the limitations of the Nike arrangement had grown so severe that the federation had resorted to buying additional kits for its teams, including Nigeria’s U-20 women’s team for the World Cup in Poland.

“We have to buy jerseys for the girls that travelled to Poland because $1 million worth of equipment cannot even service Super Eagles qualifiers for World Cup and Nations Cup as well as Super Falcons,” he said.

He disclosed that the federation began pushing Nike for improved terms in 2024 but could not reach an agreement, prompting it to solicit competing offers, with Nike retaining a contractual right to match the best proposal.

“Finally, they agreed that we could negotiate with others. At the end of the day we contacted adidas and other kit sponsors and we were able to secure a substantial agreement with adidas. Nike has to match whatever we were offered. They were unable to match the offer from adidas and that is why we are moving on,” he said.

Adidas previously supplied Nigeria around the country’s 1994 Africa Cup of Nations triumph and its first World Cup appearance that same year, and again from 2004 to 2014, a period that included the Super Eagles’ 2013 Africa Cup of Nations title.

Nike’s return in 2015 produced some of Nigeria’s most recognisable kits, including the widely celebrated 2018 World Cup jersey.

Gusau said adidas’ larger retail footprint in Nigeria, with about 13 stores compared to Nike’s one, and plans to expand to 32 stores within two years, was another factor behind the switch, as it would boost the NFF’s royalty income.

He added that the additional revenue would give the federation greater flexibility to recruit high-profile coaches for the Super Eagles and Super Falcons, an area where finances have repeatedly limited its options.