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‘Something a bit different’ – Castore tipped for new direction with Premier League club

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Rangers kit partners Castore are reportedly set to confirm a deal with a second Premier League club.

Following their agreement with Wolves, the Manchester-based firm are to take over the contract currently held by Puma at Newcastle United.

Now, this is where things get a little bit sticky with the obvious elephant in the room – yes, Sports Direct.

Plenty of Rangers fans online have been growing uneasy at the thought of Castore and Mike Ashley (as de-facto owner of Newcastle) doing business due to the highly protracted problems and issues caused at Ibrox when SD had a stranglehold on the club’s entire retail and merchandise operations with the club only receiving a pittance in proceeds from sales.

Obviously, Rangers can’t determine who Castore do business with but there will be some understandable angst at this emerging news.

Different

Mark Douglas of the Newcastle Chronicle spoke about the development at NUFC, with an announcement expected early next month:

“I’m looking forward to Castore,” he said on The Everything is Black and White Podcast – “but you’ll never satisfy everyone with your kit and the feeling around Newcastle is some people aren’t very happy, so you might see those people complaining when it comes but the gear (at Wolves]) looks smart to me.”

“Castore are going to do something different – they are a challenger brand, a disruptive one and I’d like to see them do something different.”

“It will be interesting to see how it’s structured because when you look at Wolves and how they’ve spoken about the way it’s been done, it’s very different to the one Newcastle have got with Puma.”

As alluded to above, it sounds like they are thinking of some kind of edit to the synonymous Black and White stripes on Tyneside but there may also be a business quirk – as is the case in Wolverhampton.

The Molineux club have penned an agreement with Castore which will see the firm supply kit and equipment for all Wolves teams and staff but the club itself will source replica kit and assorted merchandise for the fans, under an innovative licensing agreement.

With the logistical capability of a retail behemoth like Sports Direct, something similar could be very possible.

Meanwhile, with the launch of Rangers new kit tomorrow morning, the main priority has to be the quality of the product.

Early indications show that the products are much improved but there simply can be no repeat of the issues that afflicted the first year of the deal between Rangers and Castore, which has been proven to be very productive for both parties so far.

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