How Herbert Hainer and @adidas look like fools again

Manchester United’s style of play criticised by chief executive of Adidas

Manchester United’s style of play under Louis van Gaal has been criticised by the chief executive of Adidas, who signed a £750m kit sponsorship deal with the club last summer.

Manchester United launch retro Adidas kit following their £750m deal

United ended a run of eight matches without a victory with the 2-1 win over Swansea on Saturday and despite widespread criticism for a stagnant style of play, Van Gaal claimed afterwards that in their last two matches – also including the goalless draw against Chelsea – his side had adopted a riskier approach. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of The Guardian.

Kicking Back Comments: My initial title was going to be "Nero fiddles when Rome burns," but thought that was paying just a bit too much homage to Herr Hainer, CEO of Adidas.

What is frosting my cookie is not that Herr Hainer is criticizing Man U's incredibly unspectacular play. The man is an accomplished footballer as well as businessman. Just take a look at his CV here, from Adidas. There is no question in my mind that he knows his football.

A blind man (no referee jokes please) could see how poorly Man U is playing.

Even his criticism in his capacity as CEO I can stretch. I can ... he is looking to maximize his $1.2B (yeah that's a B for billion) investment in the team, and that makes sense. Although as he admits, business is booming and things are "better" than expected.

What I take issue with is that people are dying in Qatar and FIFA is absolutely on fire with corruption and Herr Hainer, leading Adidas, is willing to step out there and criticize Man U for their play, but do nothing but send a "strongly worded" letter with other sponsors to FIFA, asking them to do better.

Really?

How about at least criticizing FIFA for it's open human rights violations? How about saying Adidas will suspend or pull its sponsorship from future World Cup's, beginning with Qatar, if this goes on? How about Adidas wants to see the situation first hand and will send an envoy to Qatar, or maybe just aid?

What not +adidas?

It makes you look foolish to stand back and cry about Man U when there is so much more you can do first. Look at the bigger picture and for the love of Adolf Dassler, do the right thing and at least get involved with sorting out the mess that is Qatar and FIFA.