After Nike revealed that it broke the contract with Neymar Jr. for refusing to cooperate with a investigation into an alleged sexual abuse committed by him, the player defended himself from the accusations and stated that he will soon clarify how the partnership ended. “I will continue to stamp on my chest a mark that betrayed me,” he lamented.
The player used social media to give his version of the story. “They didn’t give me the opportunity to know who this person is who was offended, I don’t even know him. I didn’t even have the opportunity to talk, to know the real reasons for his pain,” he declared. “This employee was not protected. I, a sponsored athlete, was not protected. Until when?”, he asked.
The athlete had previously denied allegations of sexual abuse against a Nike employee through his team, which compared the case to rape accusations made by Najila Trindade in 2019, of which he was acquitted. Neymar’s office even questioned the delay in the victim’s complaint, since the alleged harassment would have taken place in 2016.
“Neymar, over these five years, has never been directly accused and prosecuted by the Nike employee,” says the defense, in a new note sent to TV News. The player’s team even accused Hilary Krane, the company’s general counsel, of making statements – which it classified as untruths – in an improper and irresponsible manner.
For now, the Paris Saint-Germain striker will not make public the reasons that led to the end of the partnership with Nike after 16 years, for confidentiality reasons. “For now, we will not present the documents, for obvious reasons of strict secrecy, in full compliance with the ethical principles that should guide the conduct of a company”, he says, in a note.
According to the player, the end of the contract was due to commercial reasons; he would not have come to terms with the value offered by Nike and closed with Puma. The athlete’s team announced that it is already taking action regarding the statements made by the company. “The appropriate measures are already being adopted, and the facts may soon be clarified”, he concludes.
sexual abuse investigation
According to Nike, the reason for the break was the investigation of an alleged case of sexual abuse that the player had committed against an employee of the company in June 2016. The sports brand decided to break with the attacker after he refused to cooperate with the investigations .
The complaint was made by the employee, confidentially, in a forum organized by Nike’s leadership in 2018 for its employees. According to the Wall Street Journal, an independent investigation was opened in 2019, but the results were inconclusive, so the company chose not to take the case to court.
The brand stressed that it would not be appropriate to conduct a formal investigation without being able to provide evidence. “Nike ended its relationship with the athlete because he refused to cooperate in an investigation in good faith,” said the company, which had a contract with Neymar since 2005, when he was just 13 years old.
Check out Neymar’s publication below:
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