AdidasPuma Name of founder Adolf DasslerRudolf Dassler Founding date Type of products Sports footwear, bags, shirts, watches, eyewear Sports shoes and clothes CEOHerbert Hainer Björn Gulden Sponsorship American football, Artistic gymnastics, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cricket, Cycling, Football, Golf, Handball, Tennis, Volleyball etc. Football, Golfers, Boxing, Cricket, Motorsports, Tennis, Rugby league, Movies, Artists etc. Divesification Focuses On Sports, Diversifying China shoe suppliers Expansion of product categories, Expansion with Non-PUMA Brands, Products & Product Development Expansion China, India, Russia, Canada, South America, Europe All over Europe

Rivalry between Adidas and Puma Summary: Their father Christoph, a shoemaker, passed on the tips of the trade, and so it was that Adi gathered the tools and equipment left by retreating first world war soldiers and shaped their first shoe, a cross between a carpet slipper and a running, while Rudi took on distribution and general management according to Rolf- Herbert Peters, author of The Puma Story.

The split between the Dassler brothers was to Herzogenaurach what the building of the Berlin Wall was for the German capital, says local journalist Rolf-Herbert Peters. Town chronicles mention it only in passing as internal family difficulties, but the most common explanation is that Rudi (apparently the better- looking one) had an affair with Adi's wife, Kauml, for which he was never forgiven.

There was a time when you'd have risked the wrath of colleagues and family if, as an employee of one company, you married the employee of the other, says Klaus-Peter of the local Heritage Association.

The wonderfully named mayor, German Hacker, tells me that, even when it came to the recent football match, it would not have done any good for the town's morale to have one firm beat the other. It's always good to have a heritage – it's your history and your experience combined, says Kirsten Keck, Adidas's spokeswoman, showing me around its World of Sport.

Town divided by tale of two shoes companies Herzogenaurach had become nicknamed; the town of bent necks, because town folk would not strike a conversation with a stranger until they had first looked down at the shoes that person was wearing, said author Barbara Smit, who chronicled the history of adidas and Puma in her book Pitch Invasion. The enmity can be traced to a spat in the 1940s between two local shoemakers - brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler - who fell out and set up rival companies, adidas and Puma, on either side of the town's river.

Rudolf simply couldn't stand the fact that someone was wearing an adidas shoe in his private home, Frank told Deutsche Welle. Puma people not marrying adidas people, adidas and Puma gangs in the schools, pubs loyal to one firm refusing to serve workers from the other, it's all gone on here, he told The Independent in We will probably never know the real reason why Adi and Rudi fell out, Ernst Dittrich, head of Herzogenaurach's town archive, told The Independent in 2006.

In a joint release, adidas and Puma said they were committing to the historic handshake in support of the Peace One Day organization, which celebrates its annual non-violence day on Monday. In the small Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, only the bravest dared to wear their Puma shoes and cross the river to the adidas side of town.

The town was really split in two like a sort of mini-Berlin with this little river as a partition in the middle," she told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. But the relationship soured and Rudolf left to set up Puma, and Adolf renamed the company adidas. Teens in the town square could be seen hanging together wearing Puma, adidas and even Nike, The Independent wrote.