Seven days after publication online The Herald has decided to inform it’s readers that Sports Direct have won their latest legal battle with Dave King.
The ‘Rangers challenge after losing latest round of court fight with Mike Ashley’ has been in regular use over the last four years as reality again upsets the delusions inside Ibrox but the detail is chilling even when delivered with sugar coated reassurances.
In June 2017 King told the people that the war was over with a new retail deal set up in the club’s interest as fans stampeded to the club Megastore to buy up the previous season’s kit at full price
Five months later at the club AGM it was revealed that £3m had been paid to terminate the old contract with a new Sports Direct deal kicking in from June 2018.
King then set up contracts with Hummell and Elite to distribute the kit but failed to give Sports Direct proper notice to offer matching rights which has triggered a year of legal defeats with costs going to the sport-wear giant.
Sports Direct lost out on millions of blue pounds last season with those funds, from an online store and city centre store, used to pay the wage bill and keep the lights on until the club called in Close Brothers to see them through to the end of the trophy-less season.
That source will be cut off in the season ahead with King waiting to pick up the bill for the income that Sports Direct were denied.
The key points reported by The Herald are:
High Court judge Lionel Persey said he had “no hesitation” in rejecting Rangers’ approach over changing certain rights in their agreement. Mr Persey said Rangers wished to rewrite or amend some of the payment terms in the original agreement but said: “There is no basis for it to do so unless SDIR agrees.”
The ruling stated that Rangers objected to three of Sports Direct’s amendments based on that understanding. But Mr Persey said that he considered there was no substance to the objections.
Mr Persey ruled that the further agreement between SDIR and Rangers came into existence on July 25, and would be on the basis of what Mr Ashley’s firm had provided the court, without any deletions or additions proposed by the club. It took effect on August 11, 2018.
The recommended retail price of adult retail shirts were to be benchmarked against the Celtic price. Sports Direct bosses subsequently made further complaints in February relating to other agreements involving Rangers and Elite and Rangers and Hummel. Judge Lionel Persey in February while making rulings on a number of legal issues following a preliminary hearing in January heard that further lawyers’ bills running into many hundreds of thousands of pounds were likely to be run up by the time the trial ended. The judge said Sports Direct alone were budgeting for more than £400,000.
Yesterday Steven Gerrard completed the £600,000 signing of Oldham starlet George Edmundson ahead of interest from Portsmouth and Plymouth.
CLICK HERE for the full ruling
Egg on the egg chasers face or humble pie?https://t.co/wCpEPFL9Zt
— Joe McHugh (@videocelts) June 22, 2019
