Friday, May 28, 2021 at 7:00 AM• Daniel Cabot Kerkdijk • Last update: 07:16

Nike ended its sponsorship deal with Neymar last year for refusing to cooperate in an investigation into an allegation of sexual assault. The company has announced this after reporting by The Wall Street Journal on the basis of conversations with those involved and the inspection of documents about the case. The attacker of Paris Saint-Germain and Brazil is said to have tried to force a Nike employee into oral sex in 2016.

The alleged incident took place in a hotel room in New York, where Neymar was staying for publicity activities for Nike and he met Michael Jordan, among other things. The employee coordinated the logistical organization of the events during the trip. The woman reported the events to her employer in 2018, after Nike started an internal investigation into the treatment of female employees. At first she wanted it to remain a secret, so no investigation was started. A year later, in 2019, she came back to that and Nike started working on it.

The multinational hired the prestigious law firm Cooley LLP to investigate the events. According to The Wall Street Journal Neymar refused to cooperate. During the investigation, Neymar was not used in Nike marketing campaigns. Last August, it was announced that both parties had parted ways and the sponsorship agreement had been ended, while it continued for another eight years. A reason was not given at the time. “Nike ended the relationship with the athlete because it refused to participate in a good faith investigation into credible allegations of employee misconduct,” the sports brand now said in a statement.

The Neymar camp denies the story. “Neymar Jr. will vigorously oppose these unfounded allegations in the event that a claim is made, which has not happened so far,” said a spokesman, as there would be commercial reasons behind the break. the attacker signed an agreement with Puma.

According to Nike, the investigation did not provide any evidence to support the allegations. “No facts emerged with which we could say something about the matter. It would be inappropriate for Nike to come out with an accusatory statement now without providing any facts to support it. ”

Neymar has previously been accused of sexual misconduct. A Brazilian model accused Neymar of forcing her to have sex two years ago in Paris under threat of violence, but the case was dropped in Brazil in 2019 due to lack of evidence.