Leinster Rugby and Castore have this afternoon announced a multi-year kit and retail partnership which marks the beginning of Castore’s presence in Irish rugby.
The announcement comes 24 hours after Leinster and Adidas confirmed their parting of the ways.
Castore were unveiled as the Kit and Retail partners of the FAI earlier this year and are now dominant players in the market with two of the biggest selling kits in the Irish market.
The FAI was their first foray into international football. They are already involved in rugby as kit partners to Saracens and Harlequins in the English Premiership and the USA team that will compete at this year’s Rugby World Cup.
Whether Castore now has designs on the Ireland kit or on partnerships with other provinces is as yet uncertain.
Castore will supply the Leinster Rugby playing, training and travel wear across all age grade and senior teams and will also supply the supporters’ leisure range for the 2023/24 season onwards.
The multi-year deal with Leinster Rugby will commence in July 2023, with the players and the supporters’ kit available for the first time, across the full range, in men and women’s sizing and also available in retailers across the province as well as through the online store, castore.com.
The Leinster Rugby home jersey will be officially launched the week of 17 July and later this summer, the Leinster Rugby women’s team will wear the jersey for the very first time in competitive action when they take part in the Interprovincial Series.
“We are proud to have marked the beginning of our presence in Irish rugby through our partnership with Leinster,” said Pascal Lafitte, Sports Marketing Director at Castore.
“This team and this organisation has gained a reputation for excellence both on and off the field and we look forward to adding to that legacy over the coming years.”
“We feel the team epitomises our ‘Better Never Stops’ ethos, as not only is the team highly successful on the pitch, they also have a strong academy system and community focus in the 12 counties of the province.
“Together we look forward to getting fans excited about our bespoke product and retail offering which will cement Castore’s position in the Irish rugby market.”
“This is a huge announcement today as Castore becomes a Premium Partner of Leinster Rugby and we are very excited by the possibilities, not only in the season to come but in the years ahead,” added Eamon de Búrca, Sponsorship Manager with Leinster Rugby.
“Castore have been building their partnerships steadily over the last few years with athletes and teams competing at the very highest level and at the cutting edge of performance technology in sports as diverse as tennis, to cricket to Formula One.”
“They have been learning all the time and will now bring all of that, plus huge energy, enthusiasm and ideas to Leinster Rugby.
“For our part, we have been listening to our supporters about what they would like to see. Castore have taken those views on board and they are really looking to engage with our supporters and to make more options available to everyone.”
“We think that our supporters are going to be very excited by the launch of the kit and we look forward to seeing the training kit in pre-season for Leo and his players and the playing kit on Tania’s players for the very first time in August in the Interprovincial Series.
“And of course Castore kit will be visible in all the clubs across the province as our Bank of Ireland Summer Camps start next week so it’s the boys and girls in our communities that will pull on the gear for the very first time.”
