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Aston Villa chief takes dig at Everton after £40m business deal already agreed
Meetings between the owners and directors of Premier League clubs can be testy affairs at the best of times – and there may be tension between Everton and Aston Villa’s representatives next time around.
Everton and Villa are both founder members of the Football League, have famous old stadiums and command large and passionate fanbases.
Both clubs also underwent ownership changes in 2018, with Farhad Moshiri taking his then-minority ownership of Everton above 50 per cent and Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris investing in Villa.
The two have had contrasting fortunes since that juncture.
Under Edens and Sawiris, Villa have won promotion to the Premier League, reached the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League, and will now play in the Champions League for the first time since the 1980s.
Everton meanwhile have finished 15th, 17th and 16th in the last three seasons and have been beset by both Profit and Sustainability (PSR) issues and a perpetual takeover saga.
In that time, Everton have also been the indirect victims of the UK government’s sanctions against the Russian State, with the club forced to cut ties with oligarch benefactor Alisher Usmanov.
Usmanov had supplied the Merseyside club with several lucrative sponsorship deals, including a first-refusal arrangement for the naming rights to the Bramley Moore Dock stadium.
Everton since have been forced to look elsewhere for commercial partnership for their soon-to-be new home.
And one of those arrangements has now become the subject of a dig from a senior member of Villa’s executive team.
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Villa’s COO pokes fun at Everton commercial deal
Everton’s PSR issues have left them scrambling to agree as many lucrative commercial partnerships as they can in order to raise revenue before the Bramley Moore cash kicks in.
Two of their biggest deals in recent times have been with kit supplier Castore and catering partner Aramark, both of whom were given ‘Founding Partner’ status at the new stadium.
The headline figures of the Castore deal appraised it as being worth £20m per season, or at least £40m in total over its multi-year contract length.
Until switching to Adidas for the coming season, Villa had also been partnered with Castore.
The Midlands club experienced a number of issues with the kit they were supplied by the £1bn-valued company, ranging from quality control to player complaints about their comfort.
In pre-season, Everton had an issue of their own as the club crest appeared to fall of the £110 shirt worn by their players in a 3-3 draw with Sligo Rovers.
Sharing a post on highlighting the gaffe, Villa’s chief operating officer Ben Hatton simply commented ‘Castore’ accompanied by a laughing emoji.
Clearly, things between the two parties did not end on the best terms.
How much is Everton’s deal with Castore really worth?
Eyebrows were raised when it was reported that Everton would bank £20m per year from the Castore partnership.
For context, that is just £10m less than Tottenham receive from their shirt deal with Nike – and they sell considerably more units worldwide.
It is likely that the relationship is highly tiered and, even with the Founding Partner element taken into account, will have a much smaller base rate than the headline figures.
That is not to say that it does not represent a big upswing on the club’s previous kit deal with Hummel.
After dropping their third kit last week, Castore have now unveiled their full Everton range for the season.