Sports marketing company Euromericas has claimed that Real Madrid were able to sell 345,000 James Rodriguez shirts within 48 hours of the Colombian signing at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Gerardo Molina, founder of Euromericas, said there was “James mania” from the Madrid fans and that his company studied “Sales demand and evaluated sales projections with the same professionalism that they have produced reports, studies and surveys for 15 years.”
But a spokesman for Adidas, kit producer for Los Blancos, who would not give the exact numbers, says the claims are “Not true”.
“We are happy with James at Real Madrid. We’re sure about his future but these numbers are not true,” Adidas commented.
After his incredible World Cup in Brazil this summer, where he was top goalscorer with six goals in five matches and extremely unfortunate to not be awarded the golden ball, there was much speculation about Rodriguez’ future.
This was enough to convince Los Blancos to pay Monaco a fee of around €70million for Rodriguez to become the latest in a new breed of ‘Galacticos’ alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
Upon his arrival in the Spanish capital Rodriguez was awarded Madrid’s number ten shirt, and if the figures were correct, would have immediately repaid almost a third of his transfer fee, selling over 7,000 shirts per hour in two days.
