NEW YORK (UNITED STATES), Nov. 5 (dpa/EP) –
Sportswear company Nike has announced it will break its relationship with Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving after he posted a link to a movie admitted to be anti-Semitic.
“At Nike, we believe that there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form of anti-Semitism. As such, we have made the decision to discontinue our relationship with Kyrie Irving effective immediately and will no longer release the Kyrie 8 – Nike’s upcoming exclusive sneaker Irving- We are deeply saddened and disappointed by the situation,” the company said in a statement.
Irving is currently serving a five-game suspension with the Nets due to his handling of the situation with the press and did not “acknowledge any specific hate material in the film.”
On Thursday, Irving was suspended indefinitely by the Brooklyn Nets, for a minimum period of five games, after spreading a book and a movie “full of anti-Semitic misinformation” on his social networks. Hours before, the 2016 NBA champion did not apologize for said publication, but later he did. “I didn’t mean to do any harm. I’m not the one who made the documentary. I told them how I felt. I can’t be anti-Semitic if I know where I’m coming from,” Irving said.