As the German national football team prepares for its World Cup opening match, employees of its main sponsor, Zalando, are protesting the planned closure of the company’s site in Erfurt. Tony Krause, head of the works council, told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) that this situation presented a stark contradiction for the logistics company’s workers. “Zalando is throwing six million Euros away on football sponsorship, while the people who actually made this company big and rich are being thrown out like old paper.”
The works council has been negotiating with Zalando for several weeks regarding a social plan for the approximately 2,700 employees who will be affected by the closure. Krause criticized the company for prioritizing the wrong issues, stating, “It seems that everything is there for the glamour of professional football, but when it comes to the existence of the local people, it feels like ice-cold hardness.”
Zalando responded to the criticism. A company spokesperson told RND that “football is much more than just a sport-it is a living culture that connects people.” However, the company explained that the closure of the Erfurt site is based on clear economic reasons: “We need to reduce excess capacity and keep the company competitive in the long run.”
The debate over Zalando’s football sponsorship is intensifying the conflict between the works council and the company. Although both sides resumed discussions at the end of May after weeks of waiting, initial negotiations had failed previously.
