Sponsors care very acutely about how their brand is represented. Tiger Woods lost most of his sponsorships after having an affair. I’m not saying Greenwood won’t come back and Adidas will care but they 100% had a conversation about it and will have weighed up the PR. If they strongly believed they didn’t want him attributed to the brand they could raise it in those meetings and United would have listened because money talks at the end of the day.
This is going to be an absolutely massive news story if he’s allowed back. Not ‘oh someone did something naughty’ but it will have huge implications across the sport and there will be lots of continued discussion about sexual abuse. The women’s team will have a lot to say. In a much more insignificant level I personally will stop supporting the club and have seen a lot of people say the same (not enough for it to be enough). Do you honestly think brands will want to be attached to that?
So you agree that a sponsor for an individual in and individual sport has that authority but a shirt maker for a team sport cannot decide who wears their clothing seeing as the FA dictate every team must wear a matching kit?
I’m sure people want it to be a big deal but it won’t be because United won’t just put him in the first team one day. They’ll be a massive PR campaign to test the water, he’ll probably do a candid interview and how he’s ’learned a lot’ in the last year, and if all goes well he’ll be reintegrated and everything will carry on.
Or you know, he’ll just play and it won’t be a big deal like it wasn’t for Van Persie, Dani Alves, Giggs, Mendy, etc.
Not everyone watches football for the morality of what’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and Adidas sell shirts predominately to kids who will be getting Rashford or Bruno on the back anyway.
And absolutely no one is going to stop supporting the club because Mason Greenwood wore a United shirt.
Also, these guys make their clothes in sweatshops in Asia, I think their morality left the conversation years ago.