Olympique Marseille ends Puma deal early, returns to Adidas for over €30m per year

Olympique Marseille will return to Adidas from the 2027-2028 season, with the club officially confirming on Wednesday an early termination of its contract with Puma, which was valid until 2028. The agreement was reached by mutual consent between the two German kit manufacturers, without the financial details of the transaction being made public.

In practical terms, the deal represents a significant boost for Marseille’s finances. According to L’Équipe’s information, the annual package from the kit supplier will rise from €16-20 million with Puma to between €32 and €35 million with Adidas — nearly doubling revenue from this source.

This type of early termination remains rare in the industry. A market source cited by L’Équipe recalls the precedent of Chelsea in 2016-2017, when Nike succeeded Adidas well before the contractual deadline of 2023, with compensation paid to the German brand. Economic logic nonetheless favours the three-stripe firm: the final year of a kit partnership typically sees a drop in revenue of around 25%, making a negotiated early exit financially acceptable.

For Adidas, the timeline is tight — the 2027-2028 season is approaching — but the return to Marseille carries strong symbolic weight. The three-stripe brand is intimately linked to the club’s history: it dressed the team from 1974 to 1994, a period that culminated in the UEFA Champions League title in 1993, two years after a first lost European final. The partnership resumed from 1996 to 2018, marking three other continental finals — UEFA Cup in 1999 and 2004, UEFA Europa League in 2018. The club’s two most emblematic presidents, Bernard Tapie and Robert Louis-Dreyfus, are also associated with this shared history with the German brand.