After Adidas, the Fennecs are looking for a new equipment supplier

Last week, the Algerian Football Federation announced that it did not want to join Adidas again. The end of a story that lasted four years.

“The Fennecs are ready”. For nearly a year, the poster of a shop like no other, in a pedestrian street in Lille, has been attracting attention. On December 4, Adidas opened a brand entirely dedicated to Algeria's national football team: DZ Fan Store. And the success was immediately there. Fifteen days after opening, the shop had to renew its stocks, assured at the time Expression.

A surprising success, "even though the French team is content with a store in Paris... and while the Algerian team has no store... in Algeria", ironically the daily. Since last year, DZ Fan Store boutiques have sprung up all over France, from Lille to Lyon, via Marseille, Grenoble and Saint-Étienne. With a planned establishment in Paris.

It's hard to be surprised by the enthusiasm around the Fennecs team: the DZ Fan Stores are located in towns where large Algerian communities reside. In the Lille store, many Algerians from Belgium also regularly come to find the jersey of their national team.

“Only Algeria can afford to open a team store! “, indicates a seller of the shop, questioned by The voice of the North.

A craze that then stuck perfectly to the news. The site was created just before the start of the 2019 African Cup of Nations, which the Fennecs won. Then physical stores were born. And the management of DZ Fan Store was not mistaken.

The contract with Adidas not renewed

How long that will last remains to be seen. Absent from the World Cup, will the Algerian selection remain under contract with Adidas? At first no. Long before the controversy over Algeria's new jersey - a case in which the outfitter was accused by the Moroccan Ministry of Culture of having used "symbols of Moroccan cultural heritage", namely Zellige mosaic patterns — and before being eliminated from the World Cup during the play-offs, the Algerian Football Federation would have decided not to renew the contract which binds it with Adidas.

Four years after the signing of an agreement, it is therefore soon the end of the collaboration between the FAF and Adidas. In January 2023, the federation will be free to engage with a new equipment supplier. Currently, the conditions proposed by Adidas – an allocation estimated at 1,9 million euros including financial compensation but also the supply of equipment dedicated to the FAF, according to the Algerian media – do not satisfy the FAF. Last week, Djahid Zefzief, president of the federation, announced that he was going to find another supplier. He promises that he will reveal the name of the latter next month…