Iconic French Sportswear Brand Le Coq Sportif Files For Bankruptcy

French sportswear brand Le Coq Sportif filed for bankruptcy last week after months of financial struggles. The company is set to cancel all of its existing kit deals, according to The Daily Mail.

The company had received an injection of over 12 million euros from the French government in 2023, and even designed and manufactured the French Olympic uniforms for last year’s Paris games, but neither have been able to save the iconic brand.

The company, originally founded in 1882, was once at the pinnacle of sport, especially soccer, but in recent decades has fallen from its lofty position

Only one Ligue 1 team currently wears Le Coq Sportif, OGC Nice, and the brand has never really had a major presence in French football — the national team only used Le Coq Sportif kits from 1966 to 1971 before decamping for Adidas. Across the channel, though, Le Coq Sportif reached soccer’s pinnacle when they manufactured Aston Villa’s kits during the 1982 European Cup-winning campaign.

It is around this time that Le Coq Sportif got perhaps their biggest contract ever — the Argentine national team. Diego Maradona’s legendary performance in the 1986 World Cup came in a Le Coq Sportif jersey, and the brand would manufacture Argentina’s kits until 1990, when the Albiceleste moved to Adidas.

In 2000, Le Coq Sportif joined football kit giants Umbro and Nike in supplying the most teams in the Premier League — three each, in an era where many PL teams had kit deals with smaller brands.

In just over a decade, though, they would depart the Premier League, with the last PL side to wear Le Coq Sportif being Everton during the 2010-11 season. The only national soccer team to wear the brand currently is South Africa.

Le Coq Sportif’s decline in the Premier League is a macrocosm of their decline in global football. No World Cup team has worn Le Coq Sportif since 2002, when Senegal wore the Gallic rooster.

Le Coq Sportif also provided French rugby union kits from 1980 to 1986, and again from 2018 through 2024. Their second stint was highlighted by France hosting the 2023 Rugby World Cup, which included a famous defeat of the mighty New Zealand. The Fédération Française de Rugby is currently suing Le Coq Sportif, claiming the company owes the federation over five million euros.

Back in the halcyon days of the early-to-mid-2000s, Le Coq Sportif were one of those brands that had a handful of midtable clubs in its stable, like Diadora, Uhlsport, and Fila. Those three are still around, but they are miles away from sponsoring major soccer teams as Adidas, Nike, and Puma have cemented their position as the biggest sportswear brands on the planet, boxing out almost everyone else.

In this year’s Premier League, there are only seven brands manufacturing kits for 20 teams. Fifteen years ago, there were 12. Adidas alone manufactures the kits for seven Premier League sides this year. The other manufacturers include Everton’s manufacturer Castore, a company backed by tennis star Andy Murray and the owners of the UK supermarket chain Asda, and Wolves’ manufacturer Sudu, which is owned by the same conglomerate that owns Wolves themselves.¹

In an ideal world, we’d see this trend reverse, and smaller brands could have a seat at the big kids’ table. But I think we might be heading towards a world where there are more and more brands going the way of Le Coq Sportif.

_{1 — Umbro has a very big footprint in the United Kingdom, but not much of one outside of it, especially in the rest of Europe.}