Fructuoso López, founder and president of Joma, has been awarded the National Prize for Arts and Applied Sciences in Sport, corresponding to the 2025 edition of the National Sports Prizes, the highest recognitions granted by the Government of Spain in this field.
The awards ceremony will take place at a solemn event presided over by Their Majesties King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia
This award acknowledges the career of an entrepreneur who has decisively contributed to the growth and international projection of the Spanish sports equipment industry. At the helm of Joma, Fructuoso López has built from Castilla-La Mancha a brand present in more than 140 countries, making it a Spanish reference in the sports equipment sector.
By keeping its headquarters there, the company continues to generate industrial activity and employment from its homeland
Since its founding in 1965, Joma started in a small workshop of athletic footwear in Portillo de Toledo. From this starting point, Fructuoso built a project based on a conviction: a Spanish company could develop its own product, compete in the most demanding markets and grow internationally without renouncing its roots.
That vision translated into decisions that allowed Joma to anticipate the sector’s evolution. The company placed product development and continuous improvement at the center of its business model, expanded its presence into new sports disciplines and began competing outside Spain with a long-term strategy.
One of the most recognizable examples arrived in the nineties, when Joma introduced color into football boots and broke with the traditional codes of a market dominated until then by black. That decision reflected a way of understanding innovation that remains present in the company: observe real sport, challenge the established, and turn every advance into a product useful for the athlete.
Recognition alongside the sport’s leading figures
The 2025 edition of the National Sports Prizes gathers prominent figures from the national and international scene, such as Marc Márquez, Iris Tió, Paula Ostiz, Anastasiya Dmytriv and Carlos Soria.
For its part, the distinction awarded to Fructuoso López adds to this edition the value of those who drive sport from the business and industry. His six-decade-long career has helped to expand the presence of Spanish sports equipment worldwide and to demonstrate that innovation does not depend on where you start, but on the ability to anticipate, develop products and uphold a distinctive vision.
Fructuoso López and Joma Sport
The story of Joma begins with Fructuoso López. From the age of eight, he performed agricultural work and later joined a footwear workshop as an apprentice. At 21, after completing military service, he set up a small workshop at his parents’ home.
That space in Portillo de Toledo was the origin of a project that in 1965 would take formal shape as Joma
The sport soon steered the company’s direction. During the seventies and eighties, Fructuoso drove the development of footwear specifically for athletes such as Antonio Serrano, José Luis González and Ricardo Ortega. In football, he promoted Joma’s entry into the equipment market during the eighties and, a decade later, broke with the traditional codes by introducing the concept “Color in football”. In 1992, Fermín Cacho’s Olympic gold in Barcelona wearing Joma footwear confirmed the brand’s ability to compete at the highest level.
A partir de entonces, Fructuoso López extendió esa misma visión a nuevas disciplinas. Joma se convirtió en una marca especialmente vinculada al fútbol sala con el lanzamiento de la Top Flex en el año 2000, creció en el tenis junto a campeones como Feliciano López y amplió posteriormente su presencia al pádel y al trail. Detrás de cada paso se mantuvo una misma estrategia: conocer las necesidades del deportista, desarrollar producto propio y demostrar su rendimiento en competición.
Actualmente, Fructuoso continúa ligado a una compañía presente en más de 140 países, con más de 300 equipos profesionales y representación en las principales competiciones internacionales.
Los Juegos Olímpicos de París 2024, donde Joma vistió al 15 % de los participantes mediante comités, federaciones y deportistas individuales, resumen la dimensión alcanzada por aquel proyecto nacido en un pequeño taller de Portillo de Toledo
