Berlin, November 26 (RHC)-- The global Boycott Puma campaign says the German sportswear company will terminate its sponsorship deal with the Israel Football Associatio (IFA).  It comes in the wake of worldwide pressure on Puma to that end.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made the announcement in a post on X on Tuesday, adding that Puma’s sponsorship contract with IFA will end on December 31, 2024.

“Following a 5-year boycott Puma campaign, we confirm that Puma will no longer sponsor the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes teams in illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and advocates to maintain them,” it said.

In December last year, Puma said it had decided not to renew its contract with the IFA, adding that it will soon be announcing a new partnership with a high-profile team.  Previously, the BDS movement had called for a boycott of the sportswear company since its decision to sponsor the IFA in 2018.

In the past, more than 200 Palestinian sports teams had called on Puma to end its sponsorship of the IFA.  The BDS movement, which is modeled after the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, was launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”

Thousands of volunteers worldwide have since then joined the BDS movement, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural, and academic ties to Tel Aviv, to help promote the Palestinian cause.

The Boycott Puma campaign successfully damaged Puma’s image, its most important asset, by associating it with Israel’s decades-long apartheid regime.

Due to the partnership between Puma and the Israeli team, according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), the German company had lost millions of pounds worth of business deals in the UK alone.

Calls for anti-Israeli boycotts have grown stronger and expanded to cover more firms and products amid Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has left more than 44,000 people killed since October 7 last year.