HOWZAT

The downside of that involvement was that in the 1980s, under Dassler junior, the company’s internal management nearly fell apart. Nike, which has $12 billion sales (£6.2 billion) and Reebok ($3.5 billion) captured the American market, while Adidas’s growth faltered.

In the 1990s it was revived under the leadership of Robert-Louis Dreyfus, the former Saatchi chief, who moved production to Asia, emphasised the firm’s sports-specialist roots and pumped money into image advertising.

In 1998 Adidas bought Salomon, the French ski maker, and opened its first retail outlets. By 2001, when Hainer took over as chief executive, it looked a far sharper operator, defining itself with a mix of classy heritage and football-focused expertise, and looking for growth in Asia to compensate for maturer markets in Europe.

Hainer’s main aim was to exploit that better, changing the pace of Adidas so it could respond to different audiences more quickly.

“We’re faster now than we were. Research showed us we were not being innovative enough, decision processes were too long, there were overcomplicated hierarchies here. So we cut out some layers, brought research and development together with marketing, brought more collections to the market.”

Hainer added divisions concentrating on retro styles (now 20% of the Adidas brand turnover) and fashion spinoffs (collections by Yohji Yamamoto and Stella McCartney), and tightened the firm’s grip on sports sponsorship. Its ability to pick up stars in key regions, such as David Beckham and Tim Henman in Britain, gives its unprecedented power over the European sports world.

It also aims to back the top football team in each country — Real Madrid, Bayern Munich (where Hainer is deputy chairman) as well as national teams — Germany, France, Greece — raking off revenue from new shirt design and production.

In England, however, where it already claims No1 slot in football-related products, it has been stymied by Nike’s grip on Arsenal and Manchester United — a double sponsorship that Hainer’s team finds commercially nonsensical.

But Adidas can console itself with a new, sleek black sports store in London’s Oxford Street, opened last month, part of a growing chain of flagship stores. That fresh sense of confidence, the firm’s international feel and its informal business style have impressed its German peers. It seems to be on a roll.

Not everyone, of course, sees this kind of success as a force for good. The increasing commercialisation of major sporting events angers many, and criticism of all the brands’ production methods — employing cheap labour in Asia — is longstanding.

Hainer, however, is characteristically candid when pushed on it. “I can definitely say we do not use child labour or employ workers in degrading conditions,” he says. “But I cannot put my hands into the fire 100% for my suppliers if they do some subcontracting. We do spend a lot of money to check up on it, but there’s always room for improvement and, as we are producing in so many countries round the world, you can never be completely sure.”

He needs to be, however. The sportswear market is booming — next year Adidas, like its rivals, expects to report its highest profits ever — and critics demand reassurance.

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