Diss man wins compensation from Adidas after Wayne Rooney-style injury

A Diss man won compensation from a leading sportswear manufacturer after suffering injuries from the same sort of high tech boot which caused Wayne Rooney to break his foot.
Mike Ellis, 46, was playing in a football match in Eye in 2007 when one of the studs snapped. His leg twisted and he ruptured his achilles tendon.

As a result his leg was cast and in a splint for 12 weeks and he subsequently had to undergo intensive physiotherapy.

After the injury, Mr Ellis sent his boots back to Adidas, the manufacturers, and they confirmed that they were faulty. He was offered £50 and a new pair of boots by way of compensation.

But he was unhappy with the offer and instead he consulted personal injury lawyers comercrawley of Diss. They commissioned a report from an independent medical expert and, after lengthy negotiations with the Adidas insurers and the beginning of court action, the case was settled for a four figure sum.

In a statement, Mr Ellis says: 'The original offer from Adidas was derisory, given the inconvenience, pain and suffering i went through for 18 months.

'They must have known that at the time, but fortunately my solicitor was able to achieve a much more equitable outcome.'

Emma Crawley is a director of comercrawley and a specialist in sports injuries. 'The problem with the design of boots arises with the demand for greater and greater performance,' she explains.

'Research into the stresses on an athlete's body show that the improved physique of the player, the increasingly technological design of the boot and the close weave of the pitches all place enormous stress on an athlete's bone structure.

'These days there is no 'give' in either the pitches or the studs, so you could say that the studs actually engage too well with the surface.

'As a result, all of that pressure will be put on the human skeleton, as illustrated by the Wayne Rooney injury and perhaps what happened to Luca Civelli at Portman Road.

'Their boots may not have been made by Adidas but they use the same kind of technology. In the case of Mike Ellis, it was the boot which suddenly gave way and all that pent up stress was released catastrophically.'

There is increasing concern over the futuristic design of sports footwear following injuries to high profile players such as Wayne Rooney and David Beckham, though major sportswear brands defend their products robustly. The boot which failed Mr Ellis was an Adidas Predator Pulse, and its designer is Craig Johnstone, the former Liverpool player.

In an interview with Reuters, the international news agency, he has admitted that: 'It's only a matter of time before a player gets so seriously injured that he sues a major sportswear company'.

The problem does not merely affect footballers. Already, tennis player Martina Hingis has filed a $40 million action against Italian sporstwear company Sergio Tacchini alleging poor design of the shoes she wore on court.