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Subway franchisees are in talks to remove U.S. team football star Megan Rapinoe from new publicity amid her protests for the national anthem at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Rapinoe, who signed with the company as a spokesperson this spring, regularly asserts his political views – generally calling for equal rights and an end to the gender pay gap. These views hamper the company’s reputation and sales, some store owners argued in a discussion forum last month.
At the event hosted by the North American Subway Franchisees Association, franchisees discussed Rapinoe’s removal from a new ad in which she throws a soccer ball at a person holding a burrito, citing the complaints that they have received from their clients about it.
“Boycott Subway until Subway fires the anti-American… Megan Rapinoe, the slender kneeling for our beloved national anthem!” a Wisconsin store operator read a note from a customer taped to his restaurant’s glass door.
TRUMP WANTS TO REPLACE OLYMPIC “WOKESTERS” WITH “PATRIOTS”
“The ad should be withdrawn and completed,” said the franchisee afterwards. “It gets tiring to apologize.”
Subway does not own any of its nearly 22,000 stores, but charges franchisees 4.5% of their revenues for use of its brand and national advertising campaigns.
These campaigns, argued an Arizona franchisee at the forum, should use the proceeds to advertise the product, not politics.
“Spending our money on making a political statement is completely and utterly prohibited,” said the franchisee.
Representatives of the North American Subway Franchisees Association reportedly told restaurant owners that they had already received complaints about Rapinoe’s image and forwarded them to senior management at the company, headed by CEO John. Chidsey.
“Your NAASF Board of Directors has already contacted [Subway] leadership concerns expressed by members of the NAASF, ”Executive Director Illya Berecz told franchisees in a letter obtained by The New York Post.
“I had a group of franchisees calling me about this today,” a lawyer representing Subway franchisees also confirmed to the New York Post. “They are trying to get the ads removed.”
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Former President Donald Trump also criticized Rapinoe, whom he called “the woman with purple hair,” and the US team’s third place finish at the Tokyo Olympics.
“If our football team, led by a group of maniacal leftists, had not been awakened, they would have won the gold instead of the bronze,” Trump said in an email to supporters. “The purple haired woman has played terribly and spends too much time thinking about radical left politics instead of doing her job!”
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Keywords: Megan Rapinoe, Donald Trump, Football
Original author: Laurent Richard
Original location: Subway franchisees want to drop new Megan Rapinoe ad amid Olympic controversy
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