Sports compression manufacturer SKINS has filed for bankruptcy with the Swiss Court, chairman Jaimie Fuller has announced ©SKINS

Sports compression manufacturer SKINS, a backer of several high-profile sporting campaigns in recent years, has filed for bankruptcy with the Swiss Court. 

Chairman Jaimie Fuller announced that a trustee will be appointed to assume responsibility for the company with almost immediate effect.

The Australian businessman and sports activist has positioned himself as an advocate of rooting out corruption in sport, backing the NewFIFANow campaign group, which called for widespread reform at FIFA.

He claims SKINS has affected change in sports such as football and cycling and had held the likes of the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency to account "when others were not willing to hold a light" to the organisations.

In 2012, SKINS formed a pressure group, Change Cycling Now, along with others including American cyclist Greg LeMond and journalists Paul Kimmage and David Walsh.

The group was very active in campaigning for the replacement of then International Cycling Union (UCI) President Pat McQuaid following growing international criticism of the world governing body and its handling of cycling’s doping issues, including the Lance Armstrong scandal. 

McQuaid, seeking a third term in the role he had held since 2005, was beaten by Briton Brian Cookson in the UCI election held in September 2013.

It followed a campaign dominated by acrimony between the two candidates. 

Pat McQuaid lost his position as UCI President to Brian Cookson in 2013 following pressure for him to be replaced by Change Cycling Now, a campaign set-up and run by Jaimie Fuller ©Getty Images
Pat McQuaid lost his position as UCI President to Brian Cookson in 2013 following pressure for him to be replaced by Change Cycling Now, a campaign set-up and run by Jaimie Fuller ©Getty Images

Also, in 2013, Fuller established the anti-doping campaign #ChooseTheRightTrack.

This came as a result of discussions with Ben Johnson, stripped of his Olympic 100 metres gold medal at Seoul 1988 after testing positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs, about workable options to eradicate doping in sport.

"We helped change world cycling governance," Fuller said. 

"We helped bring attention to the issue of drugs in sport, and how sport should deal with it.

"We highlighted the hypocrisy of FIFA’s sponsors in supporting a World Cup that would be built on the back of migrant labour.

"We helped call out the dodgy decisions of FIFA, long before the FIFA arrests.

"We helped bring greater awareness of homophobia in sport through our #RainbowLaces campaign in Australia.

"We helped champion greater gender equity in sport, and focus attention on the importance of fans as people, not just 'metrics'."

In a statement entitled "Farewell from Jaimie", Fuller claimed they had left ""no stone unturned" in an effort to avoid filing for bankruptcy and he apologised "unreservedly" to all those affected by it.

"I am enormously regretful and sad that it has got to this point," he said.