A few days ago, due to Mbappe’s inappropriate remarks related to China, many domestic cooperative brands quickly announced the termination of their contracts. Although Swiss sports brand Angpa has not made a public statement, it has quietly removed all Mbappe-related promotional materials from domestic social platforms.
At this time, only 39 days have passed since Angpao officially announced the signing of Mbappe.
On September 18, Angpa announced that it had reached a cooperation with Mbappé and signed a 10-year long-term contract. The remuneration included cash and company equity.
The 10-year contract roughly covers the rest of Mbappe’s playing career. Now, what impact will Mbappe’s “overturn” in China have on Angpa?
有何影響
Angpa was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It specializes in running shoes, sportswear and other products. It ranks in the thousand-yuan price range and was once known as one of the “Three Treasures of the Middle Class.” In recent years, Angpa has successively deployed in running, tennis and other fields, and football is a new business segment it has developed.
When Mbappe was first signed, Angpai told Interesting Report that in addition to serving as a spokesperson, Mbappe will also directly participate in the development, testing and adjustment of Angpai’s first football shoes. “We always view our athletes as true partners, not just spokespersons.”
Regarding the incident of Mbappe’s inappropriate remarks and how Angpa can balance the global long-term spokesperson contract with the emotional appeal of Chinese consumers, Interesting Report contacted Angpa for an interview, but had not received a reply as of the time of publication.
As for the impact of Mbappe’s “overturn” on Angpa, Dr. Zhou Ting, a luxury goods expert and president of the Yaoke Research Institute, told an interesting report: “Mbappe is the core fulcrum of Angpa’s layout of the football track. This incident will directly disrupt Angpa’s promotion of the football category in the Chinese market and put pressure on public opinion in the short term. In the long run, if the cooperation cannot be properly handled, Angpa will be difficult to rely on him to leverage the domestic football customer base, which will add great uncertainty to the new football business that has just started.”
Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of iiMedia Consulting, told Interesting Report: “Signing Mbappe was originally an opportunity for Angpa to break through the circle, helping it extend from a running shoe brand to a comprehensive sports brand, enriching SKUs, reaching the football crowd, and also boosting the confidence of the capital market.”
“However, Mbappe’s inappropriate remarks this time will trigger consumer resistance, and there may be a cognitive gap between the brand and users, which will affect subsequent consumption choices. Angpa needs to communicate in a timely manner and adopt a clear attitude to deal with it to eliminate the negative impact of public opinion.” Zhang Yi said.
Why get into football
“Angpaa’s entry into the football field is to inject our unique genes in performance, design and disruptive innovation, such as LightSpray™ technology, into the world’s largest sport.” Apaa told Interesting Report, “This is a natural extension of the strategy.”
At the same time, Angpa also invited French legendary star Thierry Henry as its football director. “He has been deeply involved in the brand’s football strategy formulation and product layout behind the scenes since the end of 2025.”
At that time, Angpao stated that its football products would be launched in China and other major markets around the world starting in 2027.
Since entering the Chinese market in 2018, Angpa has developed rapidly and its business scale has doubled. In 2025, Angpa’s net sales in Asia Pacific increased by 96.4% year-on-year to 511 million Swiss francs, and increased by another 43.7% in the first half of 2026. Thanks to the outstanding momentum in China and South Korea, the Asia-Pacific region’s revenue has accounted for more than 20% of the group’s total revenue.
In terms of stores, Angpao exclusively responded to the interesting report that it will open a total of 37 stores in China in 2024, reaching 89 stores by the end of 2025, and plans to exceed 100 stores by the end of 2026. Of the 20 to 25 new direct-operated stores added every year around the world, about half are planned to be located in China. At present, China is the market with the highest degree of direct operation of Angpa.
The outstanding performance in the Asia-Pacific market has also helped Rebecca Cai, a “post-90s” Chinese female executive and former general manager of the Asia-Pacific region, to be promoted to Angpa’s chief global marketing officer on September 1, 2026.
Although the Chinese market is growing rapidly, Angpa’s growth rate is slowing down. In the first half of 2025, Angpa’s global revenue increased by 37.2% year-on-year, while in the first half of 2026 this figure dropped to 14.0%. In terms of regions, the Asia-Pacific region grew 44.4% year-on-year in the first quarter and 43.1% year-on-year in the second quarter. Although it is still the fastest growing region of the group, it has dropped significantly compared with the 96.4% growth rate for the whole year of 2025.
In Zhang Yi’s view, Angpa’s entry into football is rooted in the fact that the growth rate of the running track has peaked, competition has become fierce, and the “involution” of the high-end running shoe market has intensified. Angpa needs to find a second growth curve, and category expansion is the starting point to maintain growth.
“Football is the most influential sport in the world, with high consumption frequency. Although the market has long been dominated by Nike, Adidas, and Puma, there is still room for technological differentiation in the high-end market. Angpa’s signing of Mbappe using a three-in-one cooperation model of cash, equity, and product co-creation is essentially an upgrade of the cooperation path between the tennis business line and Federer,” Zhang Yi said.
Zhou Ting analyzed that by deploying on the football track, Angpa can not only reach out to more high-net-worth young consumer groups, amplify the voice of the global brand, but also have the opportunity to continue its established high-end positioning and avoid the dilution of the brand’s tone.
a hard bone
But there are opportunities on the track, which does not mean that the real barriers to cross-border can be easily overcome.
As for its own advantages, Angpai said that football shoes are developed from scratch specifically based on the needs of football. LightSpray™ technology is the core innovative tool, “able to create football shoes that are light and fit, like a second skin.” On this basis, combined with exclusive spike arrangement and customized fit design, as well as in-depth co-creation with top players, a set of football shoe solutions is formed.
But Zhou Ting believes that homology of sports genes can only be regarded as an admission ticket, not a pass code. She said that football is full of emergency stops and lateral confrontation movements. The spike arrangement, anti-torsion structure, and ankle protection all have an independent set of technical standards. The corresponding database and actual measurement precipitation need to be accumulated over a long period of time.
Zhang Yi added that Angpao lacks foot shape data, actual field measurements, circle channels and consumer thinking in the field of football. If the final product’s reputation and pricing are not as good as expected, it will be difficult to complete the commercial conversion of early traffic, and it may also attract defensive competition from the industry’s leading brands.
This public opinion did not directly declare the failure of Angpao’s football business, but it fully exposed the risks hidden in this star partnership model.
How Angpa will deal with this deeply binding ten-year contract, whether to adjust the pace of football business investment, and how to reduce the business’s dependence on a single star will all become key windows for observing the direction of this new business.
Next, Angpao may still have a hard nut to gnaw on.
Author: Wang Hanyi
Related Reading
- Little genius, making a fortune as a primary school student?2026-10-29
- Lei Jun, whose wealth has shrunk by nearly 50%, “sold his house” to Xiaomi employees2026-10-29
- LABUBU cools down, Bubble Mart cuts in half2026-10-29
- Starbucks is a mirror2026-10-29
- With profits exceeding RMB 100 billion, the “King of Chinese Stocks” still suffered from the fall of investors2026-10-28
