Rangers’ partners Castore are under pressure to resolve logistical issues affecting their kit deal with Cricket West Indies.
Castore were relative unknowns in the world of sporting apparel when Rangers announced a multi-year kit and retail partnership with them in May 2020.
However, they already had one other major sports deal in place.
In December 2019, they signed a three-year contract with Cricket West Indies, making them the official kit suppliers of all West Indies representative teams [St Lucia Times].
Since then, Castore have made more moves in international cricket. They are also currently Cricket South Africa’s official kit suppliers and they have a lucrative deal in place with England Cricket which will kick in later this year.
However, all isn’t rosy in the Castore-CWI partnership.
A four-year CWI sponsorship deal with Sandals Resorts came to an end in late 2021 and a new commercial agreement is yet to be struck.
However, Castore have been unable to provide updated playing kits which do not feature the Sandals logo.
Therefore, when the Windies senior men’s team recently took on Ireland in a One-Day International series in Jamaica, tape had to applied to the playing jerseys to cover the logo.
It certainly wasn’t a professional look and CWI vice president Dr. Kishore Shallow isn’t happy.
“[It is] just logistics. They (Castore) are based in England and there have been challenges [with the shipments], even at the World Cup [and] it’s still persisting,” he said [Mostly Cricket].
“It’s something that our executive staff has to get on top of sooner rather than later because I hate to see it, to be honest.
“I can tell you that both President [Ricky] Skerritt and myself have made it known that we have to sort it out. We understand COVID [presents challenges].
“We understand that it could be a logistics nightmare with all that has happened, but we have to ensure that our teams are uniformed properly.”
Logistical issues were blamed for many sub-par Rangers fan experiences during the early stages of the Rangers-Castore deal and it’s clear that although those have since mostly been ironed out, Castore still have a lot of work to do to become a slick global operation.
Meanwhile, a winger Rangers reportedly tried to sign during the summer transfer window is struggling after moving elsewhere.