Sports Direct calls for probe into Nike and Adidas

The sportswear retailer said that the “must-have” brands are able to control both the supply and the price of their products.

Sport Direct says Adidas has “simply refus[ed] to supply key products at all with no apparent justification”, including replica Chelsea football shirts in 2013.

This, alongside the recent story that Nike is planning to cut back on its supply of product to smaller retailers as first reported by The Sunday Times, prompted Sports Direct to call for the probe.

A statement from the retailer said: “The sports industry has long been dominated by the ‘must-have’ brands such as Adidas. These ‘must have’ brands hold an extremely strong bargaining position vis-à-vis the retailers within their supply networks and use their market power to implement market-wide practices aimed at controlling the supply and, ultimately, the pricing of their products.”

The sportswear retailer said Nike and Adidas control the distribution and pricing of their products via a variety of techniques, including ‘segmentation’ policies – deciding which retailers get supply of which ranges – the withdrawal of supply, or total refusal to supply products.

“Sports Direct believes that the industry as a whole would benefit from a wide market review by the appropriate authorities in both the UK and Europe,” the retailer said.

“Sports Direct has consistently aimed to provide the widest range of products at attractive prices and will continue to work constructively with all its suppliers to enhance its product offering for the benefit of consumers.”

Nike and Adidas have historically had a strong supply relationship with Sports Direct rival JD Sports, a business which Sports Direct hit out at last month for its planned acquisition of Footasylum, which is currently the subject of a CMA probe and which Sports Direct claimed would lead to price increases.

A Nike spokesperson told the BBC: “Nike continually evaluates the marketplace and competitive landscape to understand how we can best serve consumers. As part of this, from time to time we do make adjustments to our sales channels, in order to optimise distribution.”

Adidas did not respond to request for comment.