Toyota ends its ten-year partnership with the International Olympic Committee

It’s a breakup whose motivation is not trivial. The Japanese group Toyota has announced that it will not renew its partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after the Paris Olympic Games. While the Japanese car manufacturer has been involved in a sponsorship agreement for ten years since 2015, the group’s management considered that the quadrennial event was becoming “more and more political”.

“I have been wondering for some time whether the event really puts the athletes first”said Akio Toyoda, Toyota president in a podcast broadcast Thursday on the company’s YouTube channel. “In my opinion, the Olympics should simply be about seeing athletes from all backgrounds, faced with all kinds of challenges, achieve the impossible”had already recently considered Mr. Toyoda.

The automaker follows another Japanese company, Panasonic, which also ended its collaboration with the IOC. The electronics giant said on September 10 that it had agreed with the IOC not to extend its sponsorship agreement when the current contract expires in December, citing “management considerations”. Panasonic had become a “official global partner of the Olympic Games” in 1987 and extended its sponsorship to the Paralympic Games from 2014.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK also announced it would stop sponsoring the Olympics.