World footballer Robert Lewandowski from Bayern Munich has ended cooperation with his sponsor Huawei. The Chinese technology group is said to have helped Russia to secure its network against cyber attacks after the invasion of Ukraine.
“Today we made the decision to end the marketing cooperation between Robert Lewandowski and the Huawei brand,” Lewandowski’s adviser Tomasz Zawislak told the news agency AFP on Monday with
The “implementation of all advertising services on our part” will be suspended, said Zawislak, but he did not give the official reason for the step. According to Polish media reports, the decision is directly related to a report in the British daily newspaper Daily Mail: Huawei is said to have helped Russia fend off attacks by pro-Ukrainian hackers.
The group confirmed the end of the partnership with Lewandowski AFP. Huawei’s Polish branch also dismissed the report as “fake news”.
The Polish international had already sent a signal against the Russian war of aggression in the away game at Eintracht Frankfurt at the end of February by wearing a captain’s armband in the Ukrainian national colors. “We must not accept what is happening there and must support Ukraine,” he said at the time.
