Adidas unveils 2026-27 Champions League balls, possibly its last before Nike takes over

A ball might seem like a small detail, but when it's carried the visual identity of Europe's biggest club competition for a quarter century, that's a different story. Adidas has just unveiled the two official match balls that will be used in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Women's Champions League 2026-27, just ahead of next month's season kickoff. And everything suggests this could be one of the last times we see that unmistakable signature.

Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, who claimed the men's and women's titles last season with the "Finale 25" model, will now have to defend their crowns using these new designs. The men's version leans into splashes of neon color, an aesthetic Adidas describes as a representation of the flashes of magic and personal expression that emerge when players train on cold, misty fields chasing continental glory. It sounds poetic, sure, but the visual result genuinely stands out.

The women's ball takes a different, less abstract approach. Its golden orange pattern draws inspiration from the aura of the eleven-star ring that forms the UWCL emblem, while metallic violet and silver accents give it that eye-catching contrast.

The end of a 25-year era

Both models follow the "Star Ball" design lineage, the same one Adidas has used since introducing the "Finale 1" in the 2001-02 season. Since then, the competition has seen more than 50 versions of that star-patterned ball, not counting the high-visibility yellow variants used during the winter months. It is, without exaggeration, one of the most recognizable objects in modern European soccer.

But everything points to this era coming to a close. Outlets including The Guardian and The Athletic reported in April that Adidas's 2026-27 balls could be the German brand's last at the helm of the tournament, after Nike reportedly reached a deal worth $45 million a year to take over starting next season. The contract has not yet been officially announced, but if confirmed, it would mark Nike's return to the Champions League after a very long absence.

How long exactly? The last time a ball without the Adidas stamp rolled in this competition was the 2000-01 final, when Bayern Munich beat Valencia on penalties using Nike's Geo Merlin model. Since then, it's been twenty-five uninterrupted years of Adidas dominance as the official match ball supplier.

There's one detail that complicates things a bit for Nike: Adidas owns the design rights to the star ball, the one so closely tied to the Champions League brand. So if the American company does end up entering the competition, it will have to build its own visual language from scratch, without leaning on the aesthetic that's already burned into so many fans' memories.