In a surprising announcement on Tuesday, sportswear clothing company Under Armour revealed that it will be making huge changes to its internal structure given its recently struggle to compete with other major players.

The company revealed that its CEO and founder Kevin Plank will be stepping down as the company's head. Plank will apparently be replaced by the company's current chief operating officer Patrik Frisk.

Plank will officially be stepping down as the CEO of the 23-year old company he founded on January 1, 2020. Plank will still remain with the company but will be serving as its brand chief and executive chairman instead.

The 47-year old CEO has been the face of the company since he had founded it in 1996. Plank started the company as a small operation in his grandmother's basement in Washington DC when he was in college. Plank later moved his company to Baltimore, where it has remained up to this day.

The decision to remove Plank as the face of the company is speculated to be directly related to his involvement in politics, particularly his public disagreement with US President Donald Trump. Since he founded the company, Plank had also been involved in a number of negative reports regarding the company's culture.

Plank was recently involved in a scandal involving his and his employees' use of their corporate accounts for strip club visits.  A report had claimed that Plank had brought athletes and his own co-workers to strip clubs and bars using the company's funds.

Over the summer, Plank openly lambasted Trump on social media for his criticism of Baltimore. Plank was also the first CEO to quit Trump's American Manufacturing Council in 2017, which was reportedly done as a direct protest to Trump and his administration. Plank openly criticized Trump for his reluctance to denounce white supremacist movements.

Plank mentioned in the statement released on Tuesday that he felt that Frisk was the "right person" for the job. Under Armour's CEO explained that Frisk has been with him from through some tough times and that he does have the extraordinary ability to properly translate the company's vision.

Plank also explained that Frisk should be able to re-engineer the company's ecosystem moving forward through cultural and operational transformations. Frisk joined Under Armour in 2017.

The leadership change comes at a very difficult time for Under Armour, which had reported a drop in its North American sales. In its most recent earnings report, the company revealed a 3 percent year-on-year decline in its North American sales. The company experienced drops in its sales for both its brick-and-mortar retail stores and its website.