The clubs that will change sponsor starting from next season

When a club is preparing to change its technical sponsor, fans experience mixed feelings: fear and excitement, because this means a new era is about to begin, and a previous one is coming to an end. Changing the technical sponsor means adopting a new aesthetic, while the club's social colors obviously remain unchanged. However, this requires saying goodbye to the old patterns and templates that have defined the brand’s DNA. An emblematic example is that of Liverpool, which, after a five-year partnership with Nike, will return to adidas, with which it had ended its relationship in the 2011/12 season. Starting from the 2025/26 season, many teams will inaugurate a new era. From the most prestigious – like Liverpool, which will change its tier hierarchy with adidas – to mid-level clubs, like Monaco, which has chosen an unusual partner like Mizuno. Here’s how the landscape of club and national team partnerships will change.

French and German teams competing in Ligue 1, Ligue 2, Bundesliga, and Bundesliga 2 will be the main players in this general reshuffle. If a major brand like Kappa, which especially in the last year has shown it knows how to work well on the identity of the clubs in its roster, loses Monaco, it will undoubtedly try to achieve a new goal with Nice, a club similar to the Monegasques in terms of the city’s identity. In Ligue 2, the current leader is Lorient, which, barring any missteps, will move up to France’s top division starting in the 2025/26 season, alongside the Spanish brand Joma – this can’t be said of Caen (promised to Nike), which is hovering near the bottom of France's second division.

From the diagram we created, it can be inferred that some clubs, still hopeful (for reasons unknown), will choose to start a new chapter with Castore, probably the sports supplier with the worst reputation of all, due to the quality of its kits, which tear too frequently during matches, and for a design that is simply too flat. For instance, Wolverhampton in the 2024/25 season chose to switch to the running brand SUDU, rather than continuing its adventure with the British company. In this transition season, one of the most notable changes was the move of the Portuguese national team to PUMA, after 27 years of sponsorship with Nike. The Portuguese team was a true asset for the Swoosh, which replaced it with the Uruguayan national team, thus consolidating its presence in South America, also thanks to the renewal of its sponsorship with the Brazilian national team, in the face of adidas' territorial dominance in South America (Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Peru).