Herbert Hainer said he had "no guilty conscience" about Chinese security forces, described as "thugs" by London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe, attacking protesters.

 

In an interview to be published in the German magazine Spiegel on Monday, he said: "It's okay if people use an event like this to proclaim their their political views but it is my opinion that they do not have the right to disrupt the torch relay or to try to extinguish the flame."

 

Adidas have paid nearly £150 million in separate deals to be a top-tier sponsor of both the Beijing and London Games.

 

The German-based company are also the biggest supporter of National Olympic Committees around the world, supplying equipment to 16 national teams representing 27 of the 28 summer Olympic sports.

 

The countries include China and Britain.

 

Adidas' association with the Olympic Games stretches back to 1928 when the company's shoes were worn at the Games for the first time.

 

Among the athletes to have worn adidas shoes when they won gold medals were Jesse Owens when he claimed four titles at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and Emil Zatopek when he took an unprecdented triple of 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon in Helsinkin in 1952.

 

Nadia Comaneci was also wearing adidas kit when she became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 while Britain's Daley Thompson has worn the company's sportswear for all of his career, including his victories in the decathlon at the 1980 and 1984 Games.

 

Adidas has also had a long-standing agreement with the British Olympic Association to provide kit for teams competing in the Games.

 

The agreement with London 2012 will see adidas provide more than 1.4 million products to federations, volunteers, officials and others.

 

It will be the third consecutive Games that adias has fulfilled this role.

 

They had a similar role in Athens in 2004 and have also signed a deal with the Beijing organisers of 2008 to become an official partner.

 

Hainer admits that the deal with Beijing is aimed to help Adidas establish a dominance in the potentially lucrative Chinese market.

 

He told Spiegel: "The Olympic Games have been a part of our brand for years.

 

"It is our goal to have over €1 billion (£782 million) in sales in China per year by 2010."

 

Hainar also controversially told Spiegel that companies like his had to deal with countries "who don't share our views of a democratic society."

 

Anti-Chinese groups have been pressuring Adidas to issue a statement on human rights questions encouraging China to take up a dialogue with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

 

Hainer said: "That is effort to drag us into politics, and we will not allow that to happen.

 

"Otherwise, we would have to speak out against (separatist Basque terror group) ETA in Spain and we would have to tell the Government in the USA what we think of Guantanamo."

 

Hainar insisted that Adidas' involvement with the Olympics in Beijing had failed to damage his company's brand.

 

He said: "In any case, we've had more e-mail complaints in recent days about the use of kangaroo leather in our shoe products than about China."