Adidas, the world’s second-largest sporting goods company, on Wednesday installed one of its own managers as head of Reebok as the struggling US brand it bought for $3.8bn continued to drag on the group’s performance.

Uli Becker, who worked at Adidas for 16 years before becoming head of marketing at Reebok two years ago, will replace Paul Harrington as chief executive of the US brand next month. Reebok is doing particularly badly in the US where its order backlog – a central measure that predicts future sales – declined 20 per cent against an 8 per cent drop for the brand as a whole.