Swiss star Xherdan Shaqiri mocked Puma after last night’s debacle in which four of their shirts were ripped during a drab 0-0 draw with France.
“I hope Puma does not produce condoms.” Xhaqiri joked to German newspaper Blick after the game.
Switzerland qualified for the knockout stage after finishing second in their group, collecting four points whilst conceding only one goal in their three group games.
Puma release statement
Puma this afternoon released a statement, apologising to Switzerland whilst blaming the shirt mishap on a defective batch.
“Sports company PUMA has immediately started to investigate why football jerseys of the Swiss National team tore when grabbed and pulled by opponents during the UEFA EURO game “France – Switzerland” on Sunday evening.
PUMA’s primary concern is to always ensure superior quality standards and next to Switzerland, PUMA equips four further national teams at the UEFA EURO 2016 (Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, and Slovakia). In all of these teams, players wear PUMA’s jerseys with the same ACTV Thermo-R technology. All federations have confirmed that they never had any such issues and are very happy with quality, functionality and design of their jerseys.
Our analysis of the Swiss Home jersey from Sunday’s game shows that there was one batch of material, where yarns had been damaged during the production process, leading to a weakening in the final garment. This can happen, if the combination of heat, pressure and time is not properly controlled in the manufacturing process. The tight fitting ACTV jerseys are made of an elastane and polyester material mix. The defective material was used in only a limited number of Swiss home jerseys.
PUMA has checked the inventory of all jerseys of all PUMA teams and can assure that such an unfortunate incident does not happen again. PUMA’s national team jerseys for the EURO 2016 are manufactured in Turkey.
The ACTV Thermo-R technology helps players to maintain an optimum body temperature through a unique phase-change material injected into the shirt’s inner athletic taping, strategically inserted in the front and back of the shirt. It has successfully been used in national and club team jerseys since March 2014 and worn during the World Cup and subsequent club season.
This was a very unfortunate incident and PUMA apologizes to the Swiss federation and their players.”
