Adidas hit back at Valentine’s Day homophobes on social media
Global sporting giant Adidas has used social media to take a massive swipe at the online backlash they’ve faced in the days since announcing they would ban the practice of terminating sponsorship contracts on the basis of sexuality.
Celebrating Valentine’s Day with an image alluding to a gay kiss between two women, the company captioned the image: “The love you take is equal to the love you make”.
But among the 63,000 comments on the image were a number of homophobic and anti-gay slurs.
“Shame on you adidas !!!! I’m going to Nike now,” wrote one Instagram user.
“WTF ADIDAS???? THIS DAY IS FOR BOY AND GIRL, WHEN THEY ARE COUPLE, NOT FOR LESBIANS, STUPID ADIDAS” said another.
Luckily, the company responded perfectly, writing back individually with a waving hand and kissing emoji, and correcting commentators by explaining Valentine’s as a standalone “day is for LOVE”.
adidas is so amazing for this pic.twitter.com/VO4x4CHYRC
— FREDDY (@FreddyAmazin) February 15, 2016
It follows another very positive move last week, when a company spokesperson told Buzzfeed all Adidas sponsorship agreements would be amended to protect professional athletes from discrimination if they chose to publicly come out.
“Adidas acknowledges and adheres to the principles of diversity, as this is a central part of the Adidas group philosophy,” reads the amendment.
“Therefore Adidas warrants that this agreement will neither be terminated nor modified in case the athlete comes out to the public as a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community.”
Back in 2014, the company banned a number of words from their customisable trainer range to protect the gay community from being targeted in an abuse of the system, as diver Tom Daley also became the brand ambassador for their NEO label.
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