TFL to ‘remove immediately’ unauthorised BDS posters targeting Puma

Transport for London has said will “remove immediately” all unauthorised posters on London Underground trains urging people to boycott the sports brand Puma for its Israel links.

TfL reacted swiftly on Wednesday to the sudden appearance of professional-looking posters targeting the company, which makes sports shoes, accusing it of being “proud sponsors of Israeli apartheid” and urging people to “give Puma the boot”.

Transport bosses, whose rules prohibit adverts of a political nature, described the posters on both Northern Line and Bakerloo Line trains as “an act of vandalism”.

The group behind the Tube poster protest is called Special Patrol Group. It performed a similar stunt in June by plastering ‘boycott Puma’ posters at bus stops, and calls its actions “subverting”. It has also targeted arms fairs in the capital.

Puma has been picked out by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement because it is the main sponsor of the Israel Football Association, whose teams include those in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

A TfL spokesman said: “These adverts are absolutely not authorised by TfL or our advertising agent Global. It is fly posting and therefore an act of vandalism which we take extremely seriously. We have instructed our contractors to remove any of these posters found on our network immediately.”