Nike and Head speak out over Maria Sharapova's two year ban
Nike and Head have revealed that they will continue to sponsor tennis star Maria Sharapova despite the International Tennis Federation’s decision to suspend her for two years following her failed drug test for a banned substance.
The two leading sponsors of the Russian tennis ace have sympathised with her assertion that she did not knowingly break the rules and was in no way attempting to gain a competitive advantage on-court.
"Maria has always made her position clear, has apologised for her mistake and is now appealing the length of the ban," Nike said in a statement.
"Based on the decision of the ITF and their factual findings, we hope to see Maria back on court and will continue to partner with her."
The Russian tennis ace was provisionally suspended from competition earlier this year after failing a drug test at the Australian Open in January.
The results revealed that Sharapova had been taking meldonium, a substance added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) banned list on 1 January 2016. The 29 year-old had taken the drug since 2006 for heart related issues and a magnesium deficiency and maintained it was an oversight because she only knew the drug by its trade name Mildronate.
Head’s chairman and chief executive, John Eliasch, was staunch in his defence of the five-time Grand Slam winner and insisted the tennis brand would stick by her.
“All the circumstantial evidence points to this being an honest mistake,” said Eliasch.
He argued that WADA were to blame for what had unfolded and argued that it was “probably not a performance enhancing drug at all and if it was it would need to be at significantly higher dosages than what someone would be prescribed”.
“The correct action would have been to impose a dosage limitation, not to ban the substance. That’s not fair to the athlete because Sharapova has been suffering from a medical condition for a very long time and has been taking this drug for 10 years. She has tested positive for this drug over that period so everyone knows she was taking it.”
When asked by CNN why Head would take the risk to endorse a star at all given the prominence of drug scandals emerging in sport, Eliasch maintained “It’s not a commercial gamble, its about what’s right and wrong. Its correct for us a brand to stand behind her because this is nothing more than an honest mistake.”
He continued: “A more appropriate sentence should be to teach kids tennis for three months, not to ban her.”
Reflecting on the reactions from the two big sponsors Anna Semens, head of insights at HSE Cake, said: “From a sponsorship perspective Nike have form for this and they've made the decision for commercial reasons.
"They know that ultimately re-signing her will be better for their business in the longer term, even if there is some immediate backlash. I suspect that if she gets her sentence shortened on appeal and is back playing relatively quickly other brands could return too.”
The International Tennis Federation handed Sharapova a two year ban yesterday (8 June) which has been backdated to 26 January when she was initially suspended following the test results.
Following the announcement of the ban Sharapova released a statement in which she said she "cannot accept" the "unfairly harsh" ban - and will appeal.