Aston Villa Women are said to be dreading their WSL season opener against Manchester United due to issues with their kit.
It has been revealed Villa are not happy with the quality of their Castore kits, with club officials detailing the unhappiness of their male professionals. Having inked a multi-year partnership with the sportswear brand last year, it has become visually evident this season that Villa's claret home kit gets darker and darker during a game due to players sweating.
And the Castore kits look to be weighing down the players, sticking to their bodies which hinders their performance. As a result, the kits have been called uncomfortable and heavy.
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This weekend will see the return of the WSL, with Villa set to take on Manchester United in a game that will be televised on BBC Two this Sunday. And while the likes of Alisha Lehmann and Rachel Daly should be excited about the upcoming season, they too like the men are also less than happy about the state of their Castore kit.
"This is going to be a big problem," football commentator Jacqui Oatley told BBC Newsbeat. "They've got four TV games coming up. Normally they'd absolutely relish those games and look forward to them. But they're actually dreading it because they're really conscious about how they're going to look in this wet, clingy kit – for obvious reasons.
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"You can imagine, as a female athlete, you have plenty enough to think about just being the best you can be on the football field without thinking about getting sweaty and your kit clinging to you, both from a performance aspect as it is with the men but also from an aesthetic aspect.
"And, as we know, women are different specimens when it comes to our bodies and it can really affect us and how we perform if we're constantly thinking about how we look, or a top might be clinging to our breasts and also our body shapes.
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"These are genuine issues for women which you would have thought somebody would have thought through before they released this kit. But it seems perhaps that wasn't the case, because they didn't think about it for the men so I'm quite sure they won't have thought about it for the women."
While it has been claimed Castore are now working to resolve the issue with the sweaty kits, there is no confirmation as to when it will be resolved. Castore currently have three professional top flight clubs they sponsor across the WSL and Premier League in the form of Villa, Newcastle United and Wolves.
They are set to no longer produce Newcastle's kits next season, with the Magpies having recently confirmed they will be returning to wear Adidas. And they could also lose Villa as a client too if the quality issue with their shirts are not sorted in the very near future.
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