Rascal Clothing Co-Founder Billy Wingrove buys back brand from JD Sports

Billy Wingrove of YouTube channel F2Freestylers fame, who co-founded Rascal Clothing with his football skills tutorials partner Jeremy Lynch in 2014, has taken back complete control of the brand which JD Sports acquired majority shares of in 2019.

Wingrove is one of the pioneers of product and brand building to come out of the YouTube community. Along with Lynch, he grew the Rascal Clothing youth and adult sports fashion brand off the back of the success of the F2Freestylers YouTube platform, the world’s largest football social channel with over 20 million followers between YouTube and Instagram.

Rascal Clothing was initially going to be part of the deal that saw JD Sports offload “15 attractive but non-core brands” to arch rival Frasers Group in December 2022, but last month it was revealed it would no longer be included.

On taking back sole ownership of Rascal Clothing (for an undisclosed sum), Wingrove said: “I’ve had an incredible journey partnering up with JD Sports, but now is the most exciting time of all as I am so proud to be able to say that I am the sole owner of Rascal Clothing.

“We've witnessed high growth in the last few years and our goal is to bring to the market a new fresh innovative catalogue that will spread across many different genres of clothing whilst staying stylish, high quality and accessible.

“Our main market is a junior market, however, our clothing isn’t just limited to juniors with unique ranges for adults and both sexes which we’re keen to expand. I’m really excited about our new direction for 2023 and I’m so grateful to all of our customers who have continued to support us and follow our journey.”