One paranoid Ibrox fan website believes that Mike Ashley is a silent partner in emerging Castore sportswear brand. Sadly, they got it wrong with their correction added after a day of ridicule online
Over the weekend rumours turned into FACT! Tthat the company had broken free from their long-term contract with Sports Direct. Similar stories emerged in June 2017 only for it to be revealed that Dave King had paid £3m from company funds to set up a fresh deal with Mike Ashley’s firm.
The Sports Direct owner is involved in many well known companies including House of Fraser, Game, Evans Cycles and Sofa.com.
The investigations team at Ibrox Noise decided to put the jigsaw pieces together and came to the conclusion that House of Fraser were the mysterious backers that pumped money into Castore earlier this year.
A look at the Frasers Group empire does give a strange hint as to what’s going on here.
The Frasers Group, which is now part of the Ashley and Sports Direct empire, also appears to own Castore.
Ashley of course is the CEO of the Frasers Group, and among their dozens of brands is Castore, which means, in fact, we believe, Ashley still retains control of Rangers’ kits after all.
For the avoidance of doubt House of Fraser has no stake in Castore who have enjoyed unexpected publicity over the last few days without paying a penny in advertising.
Previous profiles of the Founding Fathers, Tom and Phil Beahon were cobbled together with the Andy Murray link prominent. No Scottish media outlet appears to have approached the Beahon brothers, perhaps a bubble may have been burst.
After the ridicule that their paranoid story attracted Ibrox Noise opted to set the record straight when they admitted:
It was our own completely separate research which appears to have been incorrect. It happens. We have no idea who may have started any rumours, but we weren’t going by rumours, but by information sourced in good faith and which seems to have been wrong. And that’s fine. Our conscience is clear, because we hold ourselves accountable to our errors.
