It is a breakup whose motivation is not trivial. The Japanese group Toyota has announced that it will not renew its collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after the Paris Olympic Games. While the Japanese automaker has had a ten-year sponsorship deal since 2015, the group’s management felt that the quadrennial event was becoming “Increasingly political.”
“I have been wondering for some time if the event really puts athletes first”Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, said in a podcast broadcast Thursday on the company’s YouTube channel. “In my opinion, the Olympic Games should simply be about seeing athletes from all backgrounds, faced with all kinds of challenges, achieve the impossible.”I had already recently considered Mr. Toyoda.
The automaker follows another Japanese company, Panasonic, which also ended its collaboration with the IOC. The electronics giant said on September 10 that it had agreed with the IOC not to extend its sponsorship deal when the current contract expires in December, citing concerns. “Management Considerations”. Panasonic had become a “official global partner of the Olympic Games” in 1987 and expanded its sponsorship to the Paralympic Games starting in 2014.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK also announced that it would stop sponsoring the Olympic Games.
