As Castore suffer fresh embarrassment at the hands of Sports Direct, Rangers nervously approach their next retail crossroads.
The Gers signed a reported £25m deal with emerging sports brand Castore back in 2020 as the Ibrox board tried to find balance in the stormy post-Sports Direct seas.
The saga surrounding Rangers’ retail operations continues to this very day with Sports Direct, Elite, Hummel, Mike Ashley, Castore and every other name we’ve been embroiled with still very much the main characters.
After double embarrassment this week, Rangers face the end of this first Castore contract with fans hoping, neigh, praying, the club’s retail issues will soon be a thing of the past.
Rangers locked in Sports Direct/Elite drama
Mike Ashley and Rangers cut ties on all pre-existing contracts back in 2020.
It was a moment of genuinely joyous celebration for Rangers fans, who’ve been through kit boycotts, boardroom drama, takeovers and everything in between against the crutch of Sports Direct’s involvement with the club.
But the albeit loosened retail grip of High St billionaire Mike Ashley has somewhat remained on Rangers’ neck with the two parties currently locked in a High Court case regarding kit sold before such an agreement was struck.
This week, Rangers were dealt a blow in that case when judge Lionel Persey ruled in favour of Sports Direct with the full findings to be published in due course.
This specifically deals with a contract signed with the Elite Group/Hummel, Sports Direct claiming they had a first option on Rangers’ retail contract offer to the Danes.
In another major headache, Rangers are also locked in another £9.5m court case with the Elite Group, who have entered administration.
The latest news on this case came via the Scottish Sun earlier in the month, with Elite being ordered to lodge around £350k with the courts to potentially pay Rangers’ legal costs.
The case relates to Elite believing they have missed out on £9.5m of potential earnings due to Rangers ripping up the same contract which ‘should’ve been offered to Sports Direct’.
Oh, and this is after Rangers settled a separate case out of court with Mike Ashley and Sports Direct back in 2022 to the tune of £6m.
Castore suffer fresh kit embarrassment
The embarrassment doesn’t end their either, unfortunately.
With the Sports Direct and Elite retail rammies running in the background of Rangers, Mike Ashley had some more fun at our expense this week.
We’ve been told time and again that Castore do not have any links to the High St billionaire and yet, for the umpteenth time, Ashley has released a Rangers jersey early.
Next season’s away top – a very nice retro style white number – has gone up for sale on the Sports Direct website and is available for purchase before Rangers have even launched it.
It follows a series of high profile kit leaks heading into the summer, something which has been common throughout Castore’s tenure.
Rangers are about to enter the final season of their agreement with Castore and fans are watching closely as to what happens next.
Castore used the success of the Rangers deal to expand their footballing operation, the Manchester-based company now boasting kit deals in the Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga.
The Gers were the ‘premium retail’ company’s first football club and they’ve been clear that the Rangers gig was a ‘quantum leap’ which altered the course of their destiny.
But with the stink of Sports Direct very much still lingering around Castore – who have seen contracts at Newcastle and Aston Villa abandoned this season – Rangers fans are growing increasingly tired of it all.
Whilst by and large Castore has been a success the future of the relationship remains uncertain.
For what it’s worth, in my personal opinion some of the designs have been great but the kits are not good quality and have a very irregular fit.
As a retro kit lover, I am also not sure I agree with cheapening the quality of the mass produced kits so that they do not stand the test of time.
Perhaps it’s a symptom of a throwaway society, perhaps it says something about how the Rangers retail operation views its customers, but I’ve always been left feeling like I’m paying over the odds for low quality gear which is uncomfortable to wear.
I would like Rangers to take some more pride in the quality control aspect no matter what happens with Castore and produce more wearable and comfortable kits we can be proud of.
I am aware you can purchase the Pro kit, but you only need to look at the dramatic price reductions in Castore gear to understand how cheaply manufactured the basic stuff is.
Maybe we’d have similar issues with other manufacturers and this speaks volumes about the clothing industry as a whole, but I’d rather see value for money in the quality of the product.
With the court cases likely to come to a head very soon – the Elite case is heard in August – it would be nice if Rangers could draw a line under the entire thing come 2025 and move on.
Whilst there have been big positives with Castore, it’s hard to believe we can do that by signing on the dotted line with the Beahon brothers again.
