Everton Names Christopher Ward as Official Training Kit Partner

Everton have tightened their grip on a key commercial ally, naming British watchmaker Christopher Ward as the club’s first-ever official training kit partner in a multi-year agreement that stretches deep into the club’s new-stadium era.

What began as a straightforward timing partnership has evolved into one of the most visible commercial relationships at the club. Christopher Ward first arrived as Everton’s official global timing partner, then moved onto the shirt sleeve of the men’s first team, helped launch Hill Dickinson Stadium as a founding partner and attached its name to projects with Everton Women and Everton in the Community.

Now the brand moves into the inner sanctum.

Inside the training ground

From the 2026/27 season, Christopher Ward’s logo will sit on the training wear of both the men’s and women’s first teams, placing the watchmaker at the heart of Everton’s daily work – on the pitches, in the gym, in the cameras’ eyeline every time training footage drops.

The agreement brings heavy exposure across the club’s platforms: LED boards on matchdays, media backdrops, in-stadium branding at both Hill Dickinson Stadium and Goodison Park, plus a regular presence across Everton’s social output.

The deal then widens again. From 2027/28, the branding will extend to the Under-21s, Under-18s and Academy training kits, while remaining on the senior sides’ gear. Supporters will also see Christopher Ward on all first-team replica training items in the club stores – a full sweep from academy prospect to fan in the stands.

For a club intent on building a coherent identity across its men’s, women’s and youth programmes, it is a powerful visual thread.

A partnership built on detail

The announcement follows one of the more unusual collaborations in English football: last season’s opening of 53° North at Hill Dickinson Stadium, billed as the world’s first premium watch showroom inside a sporting venue. The space, created with Christopher Ward, gives Everton fans a close-up look at mechanical watchmaking – a marriage of precision engineering and football culture that underlines how far this relationship has already travelled.

Everton’s president of business operations, Andrew Middleton, framed the new agreement as a natural escalation.

Christopher Ward, he said, has been “bold, innovative and committed” and now steps directly into the environment “where our teams prepare, develop and strive for excellence every day,” while gaining global exposure through training and matchday activity. He pointed to the brand’s role as a founding partner of Hill Dickinson Stadium, the creation of 53° North and its backing for Everton Women and Everton in the Community as proof that the watchmaker understands the club, its fanbase and its ambitions.

Middleton underlined that Everton intend to keep pushing the partnership with CEO Mike France and his team as the club enters what he called an “exciting next chapter.”

France, in turn, leaned into the shared obsession with marginal gains. He spoke of excellence being “built on the smallest details” – the same fine margins that separate an elite footballer’s performance from the rest. Embedding the brand in the training ground environment, he argued, mirrors the unseen discipline and refinement behind every mechanical watch: work that rarely makes headlines, but defines outcomes.

Timepieces steeped in Everton history

Christopher Ward has already used the partnership to tell Everton stories through its watches. Three exclusive, club-inspired pieces are on the market.

The Dixie Dean, limited to just 60 pieces, honours one of football’s most prolific goalscorers and a totem of Everton’s history. The Goodison goes more tactile, with a caseback fashioned from the 1930s turnstiles at Goodison Park – a slice of the old ground worn on the wrist. The Goodison 3.1 marks one of the club’s greatest European nights: the 3-1 victory over Bayern Munich in the 1985 European Cup-Winners’ Cup semi-final second leg.

Each watch folds heritage, design and narrative into a single object, and each pulls the partnership away from simple logo placement into something more curated.

Commercial engine gathering pace

Everton’s statement on the deal made a wider point: this is not an isolated agreement, but part of a broader commercial climb.

The club recently confirmed CMC Markets as the new main partner, with the brand’s name on the front of Everton shirts, and Stake as the official sleeve partner. Together with Christopher Ward’s expanded role, the club argues these deals show the “increasing strength” of its partnership proposition, powered by the move to Hill Dickinson Stadium and the rising profile of Everton Women at Goodison Park.

For a club reshaping its future in a new home, the timing of such alliances matters. The question now is how far this blend of commercial muscle, stadium momentum and carefully chosen partners can carry Everton on and off the pitch.