The high-end soccer cleat market was dealt a blow by the California Supreme Court last week as the court handed down a decision in a suit brought against adidas, Sport Chalet and a specialty soccer retailer by Viva! International Voice of Animals, accusing adidas of breaking California law by selling kangaroo leather cleats in the state. The state Supreme Court effectively banned the sale of kangaroo leather soccer cleats in a unanimous decision rejecting an argument by adidas that federal law pre-empts a California ban on the products.


adidas argued that since kangaroos have been removed from the federal endangered species list and that the federal government has no issue with selling kangaroo products, the State of California should not either. The California Supreme Court sided with the letter of the law saying that “the plain language of the statute extends its scope to all kangaroos and does not depend on the vicissitudes of federal protection.” The case has now been sent back down to the Court of Appeals for final ruling on additional claims by adidas, including whether Viva! even had the right to sue in the first place.


Miro Odich, owner of Soccer Locker in Fair Oaks, CA, says that 55% to 60% of his high-end cleat sales come from kangaroo-based product and that the law itself is both impractical and nearly impossible to enforce. “This law is not going to work. Every time they try to make a law like this, the manufacturers change the name on the cleats to be some other type of leather, ‘Italian leather’ or ‘German leather,’ but it’s the same shoe. Virtually every shoe over $100 is a kangaroo leather cleat.”


Speaking on NPR’s All Things Considered, Steve Martarano, spokesman for California’s Department of Fish and Game, the department in charge of enforcing the law, said that “this isn’t a priority” as the organization has its own problems with recruiting and having enough game wardens to handle more pressing issues. On the legislative side of things, state Senator Ron Calderon has a bill currently before the state assembly that would legalize the sale of kangaroo products in the state. That bill is expected to pass in the assembly and could be on the Governor's desk by September.


>>>It seems the California Supreme Court used this case to continue to make its own stand for States’ Rights, knowing the ruling is unlikely to be enforced