Puma adds CAF to growing ball supplier portfolio

Sporting goods company Puma has continued its aggressive ball supplier acquisition strategy by signing as the official technical partner of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

The agreement starts in November 2023 and will see Puma supply the official match ball at CAF tournaments, including the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations hosted by Ivory Coast. It will also provide the kit for referees and hold marketing rights inside and outside the host venues.

Puma takes over the CAF ball supplier rights from Umbro, which held the equivalent rights at both the 2019 and 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.

While the CAF agreement is Puma’s only ball supplier deal at continental federation level, it comes in the wake of numerous deals at national league level, reflecting Puma’s commitment to its football business.

Puma has been the ball supplier to Spain’s LaLiga since the 2019-20 season and became the official match ball supplier for the English Football League, which represent the three tiers of professional football below the Premier League, from 2021-22. The latter deal was extended to the end of the 2026-27 season last month.

Puma also holds the official match ball provider rights to the Italian football league Serie A, starting from the 2022-23 season, and this year become the new official match ball provider to the Scottish Professional Football League and the Scottish Women’s Premier League from the 2023-24 season.

In June, Puma agreed a long-term deal to become the new official ball supplier to Liga Portugal, from the 2023-24 season, while a report in The Athletic indicated that Puma was set to take over from Nike as the Premier League‘s official match ball supplier after the 2024-25 season.

The company has not referred to its ball supplier acquisitions in recent quarterly reports. However, it is indicative of a wider ‘brand elevation’ strategy in football.

Puma chief executive Arne Freundt said in in a recent analysts call following its fiscal 2023 interim results that only six years ago Puma held a mid-single [digit percentage] market share in the football boot market. In Europe, he said, “We are now trending somewhere around 16 to 18 per cent of market share. And that was a market which was dominated only by two brands [Nike and Adidas].”

Puma has a long history of supporting African national teams and recently supplied kit for the Morocco team that reached the 2022 World Cup semi-finals.

Earlier this week, the IMG agency was selected by CAF to sell sponsorship packages to its major competitions until 2025 following a recent Request for Proposal (RFP) process.

In April, CAF began its search for a global sponsorship sales agency when it issued an RFP process coverings its competitions across the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.

Historically, CAF’s media and sponsorship rights were sold by Lagardère Sports – now known as Sportfive – but the governing body cancelled its 12-year, $1bn (€950m) contract with the agency in 2019. The deal had been extended to 2028 before the termination.