As fans know British premium sports manufacturers Castore are imminently to be announced as Rangers’ official kit partner. Few would deny they hadn’t heard of this brand before, but for the promotion of their kit by tennis superstar Andy Murray, but despite being a fairly young company their reputation is a good one already.

However, what led to this choice?

We know Puma and other better-known companies were also in the running, as were Italians Macron, but instead we plumped for Castore.

Why?

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.

Of course, we could be wildly wrong, and it honestly feels like we’ve just penned a piece more suited to the Daily Record or three names, but unless our research is completely off, the new deal is still with Mike Ashley.

And that explains why there’s never been an explicit announcement that Sports Direct are no longer part of Rangers, only that ‘existing contracts have ceased’.

Please, tell us this is wrong.

NB update: This article attracted quite a colourful reaction – much of it respectful, but contrary, with the occasional angry internet person giving a volley of abuse because they’ve nothing better to do.

For clarity: this was not sent to us by anyone, it was not sourced from green and white sites. 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.