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He has been one of the stars of this World Cup, with five assists in seven matches, and has been described by Thierry Henry as France’s “most important player”.
Yet, as coach Didier Deschamps’ side prepare for the third-place play-off against England tomorrow (Saturday) after their disappointing semi-final defeat by Spain, Michael Olise remains one of football’s more enigmatic figures.
Despite his rising profile, he has no official brand or boot sponsorship deals — a decision that means he is forgoing millions of pounds a year in endorsement income.
So why has the 24-year-old forward taken this approach, how unusual is it in football and how does he decide his footwear for a given game?
The Athletic spoke to experts in the field to find out.
“I can’t think of any player of that calibre, a top international at the World Cup and a top club player, who doesn’t have a brand deal,” Misha Sher, a sports marketing expert and founder of athlete management firm One of Not Many, tells The Athletic. “Usually, they would have multiple partners.
“I also think it makes him (Olise) interesting; the fact he clearly values performance above anything else in a world where it appears that everyone has a price. I’m not sure it’s intentional from a brand perspective for him, I think that’s just who he is.”
Michael Olise during France’s World Cup quarter-final against Morocco (Lars Baron/Getty Images)
Tim Stedman, vice-president of strategy and athlete marketing at SportFive, agrees it is “very rare” for such a high-profile player not to have any brand partnerships.
He explains that top sportspeople are usually assigned to a brand for a number of reasons.
“There is obviously a commercial point, where they are very well remunerated,” Stedman tells The Athletic. “There is also a product supply point, where working with Nike, Adidas or Puma etc brings customisation of products that can benefit them and help with injury prevention, especially with recurring issues. And there’s also then a profile point, where being involved in global Nike or Adidas campaigns brings stature, credibility and elevation off the pitch that gives players commercial amplification, and brand exposure they benefit from.
“It’s rare for a player not to have a deal. Zlatan (Ibrahimovic, the former Sweden striker) was involved with Nike and moved around a little bit during the latter stages of his career. Harry Kane moved away from Nike to Skechers. It is a very personal decision normally. It is to Olise’s enormous credit that he doesn’t feel the need for that. It could be that he doesn’t want the exposure or commercial adulation, or that he wants to remain detached, and is more of a private person who focuses on his playing career.”
With that in mind, how much money is Olise potentially leaving on the table?
“It’s difficult to say exact numbers, but it’s certain to be in the seven figures and probably the multiple millions per annum, at a minimum,” Sher says. “It’s fascinating. I can’t recall a time when this was the case.
“Someone who values individuality as much as he does perhaps doesn’t want to be another athlete on the roster of the big brands. As big as those companies are, and as much money as he’s potentially forgoing, that could be a reason. We know that players at that level get paid well anyway, but to forgo a deal, or a relationship in this particular category, is highly unusual.”
As Olise has no official boot sponsorship deal, he is free to decide which footwear he wants for matches.
He typically matches his boots to the colour of the kit he’s wearing, and his preferred model is the Nike Hypervenom Phantom 3, first released in 2017.
Olise has sometimes matched his boots to his kit colour (Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images)
In France’s game against Sweden in the round of 32 at this World Cup, he sported a pair customised by Matt DiGiacomo, an artist known as Matty Boy, who was the creative director of Chrome Hearts, one of Olise’s favourite brands.
Olise’s choice is part of a growing trend of players sourcing their own footwear, rather than opting for sponsorship deals.
Ben Warren, who specialises in providing boots to professional footballers, says brands’ approach to contracts have changed since the pandemic.
“Around 10 years ago, maybe less, you’d have the majority of Championship (the English game’s second division) players on boot contracts, getting paid a bit of money and getting sent all this stuff,” he explains. “It’s completely and utterly changed now, which is wild.”
As previously explained by The Athletic, brands’ insistence on players wearing the latest boot model is one of the reasons why many are turning away from sponsorship deals, especially as the post-pandemic contracts are not as valuable as they previously were.
Despite that, however, Olise is still an outlier, given his current status with serial German champions Bayern Munich and France’s national team.
“With regards to Olise, there’s no situation like it, really; being one of the best players in the world and wearing the same boot for this amount of time,” Warren says. “I’ve got some players who’ve worn boots from around 2020 who can’t get out of that model, but for a boot to be nine years old and still be wearing them… there’s no one like that.”
Warren says one of the reasons Olise would not want a boot deal might be that he would typically be required to wear that brand’s latest model. He adds that such a contract would usually mean a player also having to wear that company’s lifestyle apparel off the pitch, whereas opting out gives Olise more creative licence.
At this World Cup, Olise has worn Nike Hypervenom Phantom 3 models that match his France kits, as well as that bespoke pair against Sweden.
As a result, he has stood out even more at the tournament, where many players have worn pink boots as part of brands’ special World Cup releases.
Olise during France’s World Cup group game against Norway (Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images)
Sher says Olise has kept his options open by choosing not to align himself with a major brand.
“What we know about these deals is that once you’re in, they have exclusivity across pretty much everything to do with what you wear,” he says. “So the fact he doesn’t have that opens him up to the types of opportunities we haven’t really seen before, particularly in football, because almost everyone will have a deal with one of the main apparel brands.
“Could he go on and do a deal in the apparel category in a completely different space — for example, with some of the biggest emerging brands in that crossover category? I think he could. I’m not saying he wants to, or he will, but at least he has the option that other people don’t have.”
Why are World Cup boots pink?
What is clear is that Olise will do things his own way. That sense of mystique is visible on his Instagram page, where he regularly deletes all of his posts.
“He’s just staying focused on his football, and he’s got this mystery around him as well,” Sean Conlon, his former coach at youth level, told The Athletic this week. “I really like his Instagram. He’ll delete all his posts. He’s done that for 10 years. And whenever he does a post, it has no caption. It’s all connected to making him this enigma, I think.”
Brendan Flanagan, Reading’s head of academy recruitment and the man who brought Olise to that then Championship club a decade ago, said a similar thing, while watching France’s quarter-final victory over Morocco with The Athletic.
“Michael’s Michael: he is unique,” he said. “Anyone that hasn’t got a boot deal in this day and age, the millions you can get from that; he’s not driven by money. He just wants to play football. That’s him as a character.”
