A British fashion brand that almost disappeared is using the world’s biggest sporting event to remind Indian consumers it still exists. The story behind the jersey is more interesting than the jersey itself.
There is a version of this story that is just a product launch. A fashion brand, a football tournament, a limited-edition collection, a hashtag. Seven country jerseys, a luxe athleisure capsule, available at over 200 stores and online across 2,300 cities. Nice campaign film. Move on.
But Superdry’s story in 2026 is not really about jerseys. It is about survival, reinvention, and what happens when a global brand loses its way so completely that it has to sell pieces of itself just to stay alive.
Rise and Fall of Superdry
At its peak in 2018, Superdry was worth £1.7 billion. It was one of Britain’s most recognised fashion exports, built on a distinctive aesthetic of bold graphics, Japanese-inspired text, and premium casual wear that managed to feel simultaneously street and sophisticated. It had fans across Europe, Asia, and India. It was, by most measures, a genuine global success story.
Then things fell apart. Gradually at first, then all at once.
The brand lost its direction. Founder Julian Dunkerton left in 2018 following a disagreement with the board, only to return in 2019 to try and reverse a decline that had already taken hold. Sales slumped. Wholesale revenue collapsed. Ecommerce underperformed.
The business posted loss after loss. By 2024, Superdry’s share price had fallen to just over 5 pence, a decline of nearly 99.6 percent from its peak valuation. The company’s entire market value had shrunk to approximately £6 million. A brand that was once worth £1.7 billion was worth less than a decent flat in London.
The situation was so dire that Superdry acknowledged in its own filings that without urgent restructuring, it would have needed to enter administration. It delisted from the London Stock Exchange. It closed 47 stores.
It cut hundreds of jobs. It raised emergency funding in back-to-back rounds, each underwritten personally by Dunkerton, who committed his own money to keep the company he founded from going under.
The turnaround has since shown genuine progress. In its financial year ended April 2025, Superdry returned to profitability for the first time in years, reporting an adjusted profit before tax of £33.8 million, a significant swing from the £48.3 million loss it had posted the previous year. Gross margins improved. The restructuring is working, slowly and carefully.
But the global recovery and the India story are two very different things now. And that is where it gets interesting.
How Reliance Quietly Became Superdry in India
In October 2023, at the height of its financial crisis, Superdry struck a deal that would change what the brand means in this part of the world.
It sold 76 percent of its intellectual property for India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to a joint venture with Reliance Brand Holdings UK Ltd. The consideration was £40 million, of which Superdry received approximately £30.4 million in cash proceeds, money it urgently needed to fund its restructuring. Superdry retained a 24 percent minority stake in the joint venture. Reliance got the rest.
What this means practically is that Superdry in India is no longer really a British brand being distributed in India. It is an Indian brand, owned primarily by Reliance Brands Limited, which also operates the country’s largest Superdry retail network.
RBL has built the brand to over 200 points of sale across more than 50 cities since bringing it to India in 2012. Its ecommerce presence reaches over 2,300 cities nationwide, through Superdry.in and through Ajio, Reliance’s own fashion platform.
The FIFA Official Licensed Products Collection, manufactured under licence by Q-LIVE in partnership with Superdry, is available across all of those touchpoints. In a very real sense, when you buy a Superdry FIFA jersey in India today, you are buying a Reliance product with a Superdry label.
None of this is hidden. It is simply not the part of the story that the press release leads with.
What FIFA Collection is Actually Trying to Do
The collection itself is straightforward. Seven country jerseys, each reimagined through Superdry’s design language, the signature detailing, the bold typography, the premium casual sensibility the brand built its identity on.
An athleisure capsule designed for the kind of person who wants to watch a match at a rooftop bar and look like they put thought into the outfit. A campaign film under the hashtag #WearYourGame that follows football fans through the emotions of supporting their team.
It is a well-executed, sensible campaign for a tournament moment. But the strategic logic beneath it runs deeper than the product.
Superdry has always positioned itself in a specific lane, not quite sportswear, not quite luxury, not quite high street. A premium casual brand for people who want quality and distinctiveness without paying designer prices. That positioning has struggled in recent years as that lane became crowded, with everyone from Zara to homegrown Indian brands competing for the same consumer.
The FIFA World Cup gives Superdry something it has not had in a while, a cultural moment large enough to cut through. According to an Ipsos survey, 59 percent of Indians plan to watch the FIFA World Cup 2026. That is not a niche audience. That is a mainstream moment, and Superdry has secured official licensed status to be part of it.
Official FIFA licensing matters more than it might seem. It means the product carries the tournament’s mark legally and officially, not a knock-off jersey, not an inspired-by design, but a sanctioned piece of World Cup merchandise. In a market where counterfeit football merchandise floods ecommerce platforms every four years, official licensing is a genuine differentiator.
The India Opportunity Superdry Cannot Afford to Miss
India’s relationship with football has changed substantially over the past decade. The Indian Super League has built a domestic football audience. The English Premier League, La Liga and UEFA Champions League have millions of regular Indian viewers.
The FIFA World Cup 2026, the largest in the tournament’s history at 48 teams across three host nations, is expected to generate significant viewership in India, particularly among younger urban consumers, precisely the demographic Superdry has always been designed for.
Reliance Brands understands this. Its portfolio includes dozens of international brands across fashion, lifestyle and luxury. It knows how to read Indian consumer moments and activate around them.
The FIFA collection is, in that sense, a Reliance play as much as a Superdry play, using the World Cup to drive footfall, online traffic and brand salience for a label it now substantially owns.
For Superdry specifically, India represents one of the few markets where the brand still has room to grow rather than defend. In the UK and Europe, it is in recovery mode, closing stores, improving margins, rebuilding credibility. In India, with Reliance’s infrastructure and investment, it has a functioning, well-distributed network and a consumer base that was not part of the brand’s global decline narrative.
What the Campaign Does Not Say
Superdry’s FIFA launch communication is warm, energetic and entirely focused on football fandom. None of it mentions the near-collapse, the delisting, the job cuts, or the IP sale. That is reasonable, no brand leads a product launch with its own difficult history.
But for Indian consumers who follow the brand closely, and for industry observers watching how global fashion labels are navigating the India opportunity, the subtext is worth understanding.
This is not a confident global brand expanding into India. This is a brand that sold its India identity to a local conglomerate in order to survive, and is now using that conglomerate’s infrastructure and the world’s biggest football tournament to rebuild what it once had.
Whether that strategy works will depend on whether Indian consumers connect with the product and the campaign, not with the corporate restructuring that made both possible. And on that front, the FIFA timing is genuinely good. The jerseys are officially licensed, the campaign is well-made, and the distribution is as wide as it has ever been.
The World Cup runs until July 19. Superdry has about five weeks to make an impression on 59 percent of India that is planning to watch.
