Thick Accent Staff

Twitter Reacts to Wales Ditching Adidas for Little-Known Sudu

Adidas, Football Kits, Wales National Football Team

Reports emerged on Thursday that the Football Association of Wales is preparing to end its long-standing kit partnership with Adidas and replace the German sportswear giant with Sudu, a little-known manufacturer whose name has left many supporters scrambling for their phones to find out who they even are.

Adidas have supplied the national team since November 2013, a partnership that spanned Wales’ run to the Euro 2016 semi-finals, two further European Championships and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, making the prospect of swapping the three stripes for an emerging brand feel like a sudden change and many people have been thinking what brought about this change.

The proposed move, first reported by WalesOnline journalist Glen Williams, is understood to be driven at least in part by the financial fallout of Wales’ failure to qualify for this summer’s World Cup in North America, where they lost a penalty shootout to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the play-offs.

Missing the tournament means the FAW loses out on significant anticipated commercial income, with the governing body having earned around £10 million from qualification for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Wales needs to replace the lost World Cup revenue. An Adidas deal is too expensive and offers a smaller profit share. Sudu offers a cheaper, more efficient model that allows the FAW to keep more of the proceeds from every shirt sold, making this decision a direct financial necessity.

The brand was launched in early 2024 under the umbrella of Levy Merchandising, with backing from Wolves’ parent company Fosun Sports Group, and has focused on bespoke designs that move away from the template-led approach often associated with the biggest global sportswear brands.

Social media reaction to this update has been wild. With many fans struggling to process the apparent downgrade from one of the world’s most recognisable kit manufacturers to a name they have barely heard of.

Other fans quickly drew unflattering comparisons between Sudu’s existing Wolves kits, which have drawn mixed reviews for their design and quality, and the iconic Adidas shirts worn by Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey during Welsh football’s golden generation.

The timing of the reported switch is particularly striking, because Wales had only recently celebrated their long-standing relationship with Adidas by releasing a special commemorative jersey to mark the FAW’s 150th anniversary earlier this year.

That heritage shirt, a retro-inspired design featuring the classic Adidas trefoil logo, now looks set to become one of the final centrepieces of a partnership that had stretched across two separate spells, the first between 1980 and 1987, and the second beginning in 2013.

With Wales now turning their attention to Euro 2028, a tournament they will co-host as part of the UK and Ireland bid, the FAW appears to be betting that Sudu can be a game changer for the youth and new supporters.

Whether that bet pays off, however, will ultimately be decided by the one group whose opinion matters most: the fans who will be the ones buying the shirts.

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