adidas announced Sport Infinity, their plan for a new breed of sporting goods that will never be thrown away. Instead, football creators will be able to constantly reimagine and recycle their dream products using an inexhaustible 3-D super-material. Every gram of sportswear, including the boots of Leo Messi, will be broken down to be remoulded again in a waste-free, adhesive-free process that gives consumers more scope for personalisation than ever before.
Four-time FIFA Ballon d’Or winner Leo Messi said: “I am proud that adidas is working to make sure that all of their boots, including mine, are being made in a way that protects the environment. For me, this is the future of football.”
Sport Infinity is a research project led by adidas and funded by the European Commission, which brings together a variety of industry and academic experts, and combines broken- down sports products with excess materials from other industries. So the football boots of the future could contain everything from carbon used in aircraft manufacturing to fibres of the boots that scored during the World Cup.
The new super-material will make every sports fan a product designer. A pair of boots can be restyled as often as the wearer wants without worrying about waste. Whether to keep up with the latest trends or react to on-pitch needs, the football fan of the future will never wear old boots again.
Gerd Manz, Vice President Technology Innovation at adidas, said: “This is a game-changing development for football fans. Over the next three years, Sport Infinity aims to end the days of throwing away football boots. Instead, every pair of boots is not just recycled but reimagined to the consumer’s most personal specifications.”
adidas and the European Commission kicked off the project in June 2015 together with nine other industry-leading experts: BASF SE; KISKA GmbH; FILL Gesellschaft m.b.H.; Friedrich- Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU); OECHSLER AG; University of Leeds, Centre for Technical Textiles (CTT); Association CETI (Centre Européen des Textiles Innovants); Hypercliq E.E.; SportsMethod Ltd.