The most expensive training gear in football history cost Nike almost nothing at the time. A few hundred dollars' worth of tracksuits and boots, reportedly requested by Jorge Messi on behalf of his teenage son, allegedly went unanswered by Nike's offices in Spain and South America. That reported silence eventually handed Adidas one of the greatest commercial partnerships the sport has ever seen.
Messi had been with Nike since his La Masia days. He wore their Mercurial Vapors for his senior Barcelona debut against Espanyol on October 16, 2004. He appeared in their World Cup marketing plans. Everything pointed toward a long, natural partnership — Barcelona were a Nike club, Messi was a Nike player, the fit seemed obvious.
Then 2006 happened.
The court case nobody remembers
When Adidas moved in with a reported offer worth around $1 million per year, Nike didn't just let Messi walk. They went to the Spanish courts, arguing he was still legally bound to them. The document they presented as proof was described by the judges as a "commitment letter" — not a fully enforceable endorsement contract. The February 2006 ruling cleared Messi to sign with Adidas, and Nike's relationship with arguably the greatest player ever to lace up a boot was finished before it had really begun.
The legal defeat stings more with every passing year. By the time Messi lifted the World Cup in Qatar on December 18, 2022 — in Adidas boots, with the three stripes on his chest — images of that moment circled the globe within hours. Argentina shirt sales overwhelmed retailers. Adidas reported surging football revenues off the back of the tournament. The face of all of it was the player Nike once had on their books as a teenager.
Adidas had been building toward that moment for nearly two decades. They launched Messi editions of their F50 boots, built entire apparel lines around him, and in February 2017 handed him a lifetime endorsement deal — reportedly worth hundreds of millions across his lifetime, modelled on the kind of legacy arrangement Nike built with Michael Jordan. The difference being that Nike built theirs on purpose. Adidas essentially stumbled into theirs because a rival didn't respond to an equipment request.
What Messi's Adidas deal looks like now
His move to Inter Miami in June 2023 only deepened the partnership. Adidas supplies MLS kits, and Messi's pink No. 10 shirt became one of the best-selling football jerseys in North American history almost immediately. The commercial ripple effects went well beyond the club — every Messi story is now an Adidas story by extension.
Celebrity Net Worth puts Messi's estimated net worth at $1 billion, built across salaries, endorsements, and business ventures. Adidas sits at the centre of his off-field income alongside Pepsi, Lay's, Mastercard, and Hard Rock International. He reportedly turned down a Saudi offer believed to be worth around $400 million per season to join Inter Miami on a deal that included future equity in the MLS club — which tells you something about how he values long-term positioning over short-term paydays.
- Eight Ballon d'Or titles
- UEFA Champions League winner with Barcelona
- 2022 FIFA World Cup winner with Argentina
- Lifetime Adidas endorsement contract signed in 2017
- Inter Miami No. 10 among the best-selling shirts in MLS history
Nike, for their part, have never publicly confirmed that the reported training gear dispute drove the split, and Messi has never said so either. Maybe it was more complicated than that. But the story has stuck precisely because it sounds true — the kind of corporate indifference that costs nothing in the moment and everything in retrospect.
What's certain is that a court ruling in February 2006 changed the commercial landscape of football, even if nobody fully understood it at the time. Nike had a generational talent under a document that didn't hold up in court. Adidas had a cheque and good timing. Twenty years later, one of them owns the defining image of the sport's greatest player. The other has a fascinating footnote in sports business history.
