On Signs Mbappé: The Bet on Trust in a Football Boot

Tuesday night, a small café on Nguyễn Huệ Street, Saigon. My laptop replays the clip of Kylian Mbappé signing with On. Outside the glass, car horns and street vendors' calls braid into the familiar sound of this city each evening. But what makes me stop, rewind three times, is not the radiant smile of the French player. It is the moment the camera pans down to the table: a pair of boots placed neatly next to a folder, a pair I have never seen on any pitch in more than twenty years of this work.

Those boots are beautiful. They are expensive. They were shot in perfect light, in the hands of one of the most famous players on the planet. But they have never taken a shot. They have never touched wet grass on a July evening. They have never sunk into mud, never slipped on a hot artificial surface, never made a knee bear the consequences of a wrong turn.

To me, those boots are a metaphor for the whole story Reuters broke that day — a story I think Vietnamese football fans should read carefully rather than skim like an ordinary transfer bulletin. This story goes beyond the frame of a transfer. It is about a Swiss brand trying to buy something money can buy — and something else money may never buy.

Context: From Zurich to Paris, and a name echoing in Saigon

On Holding AG is no stranger to those who follow the running shoe industry. Founded in Zurich in 2026, this Swiss brand rose on CloudTec sole technology with its distinctive "pods", then listed on the NYSE under the ticker ONON. But to most Vietnamese football fans, On was a faint name, appearing only in passing in conversations among amateur runners.

The turning point came from another sport. In 2026, Roger Federer — the icon of tennis — left Nike to join On, in a deal that included an equity stake estimated at around 2.5%, according to Forbes. That was when On entered the big game: not just hiring a face, but inviting a legend to become a shareholder. Since then, it has grown fast, moving from an odd running brand to a formidable rival in the global sportswear market.

And now it turns to football — the most-played sport on the planet, but also the arena where Nike and Adidas have split the throne for half a century.

According to Reuters, On has signed a partnership with Kylian Mbappé — not just a brand ambassador, but a partnership partly paid in equity. Alongside it comes the appointment of Thierry Henry — the French former star, World Cup and Euro champion — as director of the soccer business. The company declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.

That is the important detail. Perhaps the most important detail of the entire story.

In my trade, there is a line I always carry: "I have listened to people whisper for more than ten years — the hottest news is usually spoken in the softest voice." And here, the softest voice is the number not spoken. When a brand declines to disclose the value of the largest deal in its expansion history, it is usually not because the number is small. It is because the number is large enough to require media management.

How did Wall Street react, Reuters reported? On's shares dipped about 0.3% in choppy trading. Analysts are asking whether the investment is worth it. And amid those numbers, there is a simple question I think anyone who loves football should ask themselves: can a brand buy the trust of a player standing before the decisive shot?

Core analysis: The bet on pricing trust

The first thing to understand: On is not buying a face, it is buying a chance to enter a product category it has never won.

Look at the brand's trajectory. On started with running shoes — where it had genuine technical credibility. Then it expanded into tennis — where Federer was a logical bridge, because tennis is culturally close to the middle class in Europe and North America, where a durable, light, elegant shoe is part of a symbol. Now it steps into football — where the rules of play are entirely different.

A football boot is not a running shoe. It must bear the rotational force when a player changes direction, the striking force when the ball leaves the foot, the grip when it rains, and above all it must be validated by professional players themselves in big matches. This is the first time On has entered a category where people do not buy shoes because they are beautiful, but because they are believed to help them play better.

That is why the Mbappé deal is not a mere advertising campaign. It is a bet on authenticity. In the world of football, professional players are the toughest consumers. They test boots in training, they feel every millimetre of the foot form, they know exactly which boot makes them strike harder and which makes them slower by a fraction of a second in a sprint. No marketing campaign can fool them for long.

On's strategy has a name: "adjacency stacking". Each expansion into a new sport raises the marketing cost, but if successful, it can extend the growth cycle. The problem is that football is no easy arena. This is a category where Nike and Adidas have invested for decades, with sponsorship networks spanning national teams, big clubs, youth academies, and even grassroots pitches from South Africa to Vietnam. On enters ten years late, twenty years late, even half a century late compared with its rivals.

Second: this is an equity deal, not cash — and that says a lot.

The equity component On confirmed to Reuters brings this deal closer to the Federer template than to an ordinary advertising contract. In the short term, this is a smart way to preserve cash: instead of spending a large sum immediately, the company pays in paper whose value is tied to its own future.

But this structure is double-edged. Equity dilutes existing shareholders — meaning each old shareholder holds a smaller slice of the company than before. And it ties the star's income to the share price, meaning Mbappé not only has an incentive to play well, but also to make the On brand grow. That sounds theoretically appealing, but it raises a question no analyst can answer without knowing the exact number of shares: what happens if On's stock falls 30% over two years? Does an equity-based deal still hold its appeal when its value evaporates?

On the market, On's shares carry a P/E of about 18.7 times earnings — slightly above sportswear peers. P/E is a valuation gauge: share price divided by earnings per share. When it is above the average, investors are valuing the company with high growth expectations, and they accept paying more to get a piece of that growth. With such a P/E, every marketing dollar spent must prove it creates new value — not merely defends old position.

Third: the market backdrop supports On — but not entirely.

According to M Science data, in the three months to August, On gained share while Nike kept losing it. That is a notable signal. Nike is the giant, and nibbling away at its share — even by a few percent — is evidence of the new wave's momentum. A Swiss brand that rose from running shoes is doing what many thought impossible.

But there is a structural weakness Reuters mentions: more than 50% of On's revenue comes from the Americas, and this region is flagged as declining. This creates a curious asymmetry. The Mbappé deal needs to lift revenue from the Americas, but Mbappé is a star with greatest appeal in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Vietnam, he is the idol of most young players. But in the US, soccer is still a third-tier sport behind American football, basketball and baseball. In other words, On is using a global asset to solve a regional problem.

Add to that, consumers face inflation and an uncertain economy. A premium football boot is a purchase people can delay. This is not an ideal environment to try betting on a new category.

Fourth: LightSpray technology — a technical anchor or a marketing story?

On argues that its robotic manufacturing technology LightSpray — currently used in running shoe uppers — is an asset as it enters football boots. In theory, that is a reasonable argument: precise, light, low-waste manufacturing.

But a football boot is not only an upper. It is a stud system, a sole structure, rotational-force capacity that makes a knee bear a player's career lifespan. Whether a technology for weaving running-shoe uppers can transfer to a football boot is unproven, and no data in this report shows they have done it. In football, every part of a boot must bear a different force, and a good upper technology may not solve the problem in the sole.

Here I want to tell a story from my own tracking experience. Back when I worked in Europe, I spent many afternoons at a training centre asking young players about the boots they chose. Their answers were always the same. They did not choose boots because of the brand. They chose because a pair felt right on the foot. "This one locks my foot better," one boy said. "I strike and the ball goes where I want." That is something no advertising contract can create. Football is a sport where trust in a product is built one pair at a time, one match at a time, and sometimes at the cost of a player's entire career if the boot is not good enough.

Fifth: the Vietnamese context — a market Mbappé may not grasp.

To fans in Vietnam, this story carries a special layer of meaning. Vietnam's football boot market, for years, has been dominated by Nike and Adidas — two brands holding almost all sponsorship contracts for the V-League and youth national teams. What does a rising brand like On entering this market mean?

First, price. If On pushes football boot prices up on "technology" grounds, amateur players — the majority on weekend artificial-turf pitches — will have to pay more for a pair to wear in a match with friends. But at the same time, On's competition could force Nike and Adidas to be more creative, and that, in the long run, could benefit consumers.

There is one more thing I observed walking through pitches in District 7, District 2, Thủ Đức: young Vietnamese players increasingly know about boots. They no longer just look at the logo. They ask about weight, stud type, foot form. This new generation of players is the strictest audience for any brand entering football. If On comes to Vietnam only with Mbappé advertising but no real product, it will be seen through faster than it thinks.

And this is what I have always believed, after more than twenty years following Southeast Asian football: "World Cup 2026 gave me a strange answer: football does not need control, it needs to be trusted." A brand is the same. It does not need to control the market, it needs to be trusted.

Sixth: the transmission chain in the football industry.

This deal is not only a story between On and Mbappé. It is a link in a broader transmission chain of the football industry.

Upstream, there is the ecosystem of players and agents. A global endorsement deal raises the value of a player's image, and with it, the commissions of agents. This is part of the spreading trend of "paying stars in equity": from Federer to Mbappé, brands increasingly choose to pay partly in stock to bind a star's fate to the company's. The line between endorser and shareholder is blurring.

Midstream is category competition. On takes on Nike and Adidas in the football boot segment — a battle in which marketing costs can push player endorsement prices up worldwide. If On succeeds, other brands will have to spend more to keep their stars, and that cost will eventually pass partly into the prices of boots sold to consumers.

Downstream is boot sales, merchandise, and the value of image rights in football video games. Mbappé is not only a face on the pitch; he is one of the most simulated characters in modern football games. A deal with On could interact with his broader licensing portfolio, opening revenue streams a quarterly financial report cannot yet show.

At national level, the impact is indirect. National teams have their own rules on kit and sponsors, and a personal deal like Mbappé-On could create subtle conflicts with team contracts. But that is a story of the future, not in today's news.

Seventh: the trap of the media cycle.

Every big deal in sport passes through a familiar media cycle: announcement, excitement, scepticism, verification. Right now, On and Mbappé are in the acceleration phase — when the deal's fame spreads faster than its ability to prove value.

This is the most dangerous phase. Because in the coming months, when football boot sales have yet to appear on the balance sheet, the only thing left is impression. And if that impression is not nourished by real results, the "hype then bust" cycle returns. The media, always needing a new story, has a ready template to invoke: Under Armour and Curry. When a brand bets on a star and fails, that story becomes a weapon for later articles.

Notably, Reuters put both sides on the table — positive voices from retail and commerce, sceptical voices from the investment side. That a major news agency proactively balances this way means expectations have been "risk-managed" in advance. If On fails, it will not be a shock; it will be a scenario readers were prepared for. But if On succeeds, it will be all the more impressive, because it will have overcome a prejudice sown in advance.

Contrarian angle: What the numbers do not say

This is the part most commentary will skip. This deal is not only judged by fans, but by investors — and they may not be convinced.

In the Reuters report, there is a notable figure. Randy Konik, an analyst, says that "performance credibility cannot simply be bought". He is right. This is the core line, worth reading three times. A brand can buy advertising, buy attention, buy even presence on a shirt. But it cannot buy the trust that this boot genuinely helps a player play better. That trust must be proven on the pitch, through thousands of hours of training, through matches where the boot either holds the player's foot or makes him pay the price.

Analysts from Jefferies, Morningstar and Columbia Threadneedle see this deal as a capital-allocation question, not a sports story. They want to know: where else could this money be better invested? And the answer — without data on the deal's value — is that it cannot be calculated. This is the biggest blind spot of the whole story: the cost is undisclosed, so the return on investment cannot be verified.

One more detail caught my attention. After the announcement, On's shares dipped about 0.3% in choppy trading. Reuters reads this as a sign that "investors are not sold". But I think that reading warrants caution. A 0.3% move is within the normal noise of a trading session. A stock dipping 0.3% in one day says little meaningful about scepticism. Sometimes it is just profit-taking after the news, a phenomenon called "selling the news" — when the price has already reflected expectations, and investors take profits once the information becomes official. It is true investors are asking questions, but the evidence is weaker than the way it is presented.

But there is a much stronger counter-story, and it has a name: Under Armour and Stephen Curry.

Years ago, Under Armour — a rising brand — also bet on a new-generation basketball star, Stephen Curry. At the time, everyone thought the brand would use Curry to break Nike's dominance in basketball. But the result was not that. Curry soared, Under Armour struggled, and the lesson left behind is this: a great star does not guarantee a successful category. This is a named precedent, with evidence, and Reuters used it as a direct warning for the Mbappé deal. If On does not have a good product, it could repeat Under Armour's path — more famous but unable to win the market.

The deepest contrarian point: investors are looking at this deal as a question of "is it worth the money", while the real question should be "does it create a cultural change". Because On is not competing with Nike on marketing budget. It is competing on meaning. If it wins, it will not be because it paid more, but because it made a generation of players believe there is an alternative to the two giants. That trust is not measured by P/E, and it does not appear in next quarter's financial report.

And there is another truth that financial reports ignore: sometimes what is bought is not sales, but presence. A brand appearing on Mbappé's feet in a Champions League final is worth far more than millions of dollars of advertising, because it enters the collective memory of hundreds of millions of people. But that value is very hard to quantify, and it does not appear on the balance sheet. This is the paradox of the sports industry: the most valuable things are the hardest to measure.

There is another layer of meaning I thought about while reading the report. In football, sometimes a deal is judged by whether it forces rivals to react. If Nike must raise its sponsorship budget to keep its stars, if Adidas must speed up its boot launch cycle, then the Mbappé-On deal has created a spillover effect of value. A small brand, with one bold move, can change the tempo of an entire market. That is what market-share figures cannot yet show, and also what financial analysts often overlook, because they focus on quarterly profit rather than strategic position.

Takeaway

What to watch is not whether Mbappé wears On boots in the next match. That is almost certain to happen. What to watch is whether those boots hold up through an English winter, through a Paris derby, through training sessions where every shot could destroy a career.

There are signals I will watch over the next six months. On's football-category revenue in the quarterly report — if any, it will be the first evidence of real return. Americas performance — if it keeps declining, this deal will be scrutinised under a harsher light. Nike's response — a challenged Nike usually spends harder, pushing up the cost of competition for everyone, including On. The official equity disclosure — if there is a large dilution, shareholders will react. And finally, the boots appearing on European pitches — because in football, the only endorsement that counts is the endorsement of the foot.

I return to Saigon, sit in the old café, close the laptop. Outside, the night match on the nearby artificial pitch is still lit. Those amateur players, eight in the evening, play exactly one game, paying for the pitch with a week's sweat. They do not care about P/E, about equity, about the analysts at Jefferies. But they care about one simple thing: do the boots on their feet help them play better.

And that, perhaps, is the final measure for any brand that dares to enter this sport. Not the share price. Not the contract. But a young player, after a tackle from behind, sitting in the dressing-room corridor, calling his mother and bursting into tears. "The crying at Thống Nhất was not because of defeat — but because people trusted each other to the final whistle." A brand, to be trusted, must also pass through such sweat.

Thống Nhất is not grand — it only has people brave enough to cry mid-match. That is enough to remember. And boots, to be remembered, must be the same.