Zlatan Ibrahimovic's Fashion Label Forced To Shut Down With $23 Million Loss

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has very rarely tasted failure on the pitch since his emergence as a teenager at Dutch club Ajax. He has won domestic titles with every club that he has represented apart from Manchester United, but he did win the Europa League with the Premier League club.

The Swedish striker is also well represented on the endorsement front with brands such as Visa and Samsung among others backing him off the field. But Ibrahimovic has had to throw in the towel on his fashion line A-Z that he started in 2016 after suffering major losses in the last two years.

According to Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri, via Sky News, Ibrahimovic’s fashion label has been shut down after being hit with marketing costs. They are said to have suffered losses in the region of $23 million in just two years since the launch.

The former Sweden international started the fashion label in partnership with Norwegian fashion giant the Varner Group while he was in the Premier League with United. They recently confirmed the decision to shut down the company and explained the reason via an official statement.

“Despite solid growth in 2017 the European sportswear effort has proved too expensive,” the statement read, according to Sky News. “Petter Varner and Zlatan Ibrahimovic agree to end their co-operation in A-Z.”

The brand did not get off the ground at all after the the financial director of Varner Group gave a grim update about the brand after just one year. He admitted that the losses were much higher than expected despite their understanding that they will not make money in the first year.

“2016 was the first year of the company and we had high commercialisation costs, but of course we expect improved sales and improved results,” Toralf Riskild said. “We knew we would not make money in the first year but the losses were higher than expected.”

The brand name A-Z was based on Ibrahimovic’s journey from “amateur to Zlatan." The player, who refers to himself as “god” is yet to make a comment on the closing down of his fashion line.

Ibrahimovic, meanwhile, continues to prove his doubters wrong after making a stellar start to life in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States. He joined the LA Galaxy earlier in the year and has already racked up 15 goals in 19 appearances to help Galaxy to fifth place on the Western Conference table.

The Swede, however, is not the only footballer with a fashion label to his name with Cristiano Ronaldo already in a pioneer in the field with his CR7 brand. It started off with underwear, but has now branched into denim, children’s fashion and perfumes.

There are other lesser known footballers like Christian Fuchs, Gregory van dier Weil and Marvin Morgan, who have fashion brands that are well popular among top Premier League and European league football stars.