The Daily Record has announced to their army of readers that Sports Direct are about to have their Ibrox connections severed. Again.
An outstanding claim for damages is still to be resolved after Mike Ashley’s firm weren’t given the opportunity to match the deal secured by Hummel and Elite in the summer of 2018.
Litigation from Sports Direct has dogged the Ibrox club for the last two years with a judge ordering Dave King’s old club to pay the legal fees for both sides.
Just after 1pm today the Record announced that the contract between the two companies was over, famously in June 2018 Keith Jackson revealed:
He stopped short of waving a piece of paper in the air as he walked into the press room inside Ibrox.
But for Dave King this was perhaps as significant a moment in his leadership of Rangers as the day he sat there to declare that a previous war was over and the old regime had been ousted.
The peace that he declared yesterday with Mike Ashley and Sports Direct is a truce which must feel very much like a victory for King who has been tangling fairly brutally with the Newcastle owner since he first began his battle for control of the boardroom.
The agreed way which was presented yesterday offered no suggestion of either man backing down or an indication of winners or losers.
And that’s very possibly because by redrawing the terms of a new one-year contract and throwing out all previous arrangements between the two business, all parties had somehow managed to escape this toxic conflict and come out of it on top.
Later in the year it emerged that the Ibrox side paid £3m to end the deal which was replaced by a new contract that entitled Sports Direct to matching rights.
BREAKING! Rangers and Sports Direct partnership ends as Ibrox club finally get rid of Mike Ashley influencehttps://t.co/6LDrm8o8dC pic.twitter.com/uF0UEFhUfr
— Daily Record Sport (@Record_Sport) May 2, 2020
Today, two years after Jackson’s revelations, Record readers are today informed:
Rangers’ relationship with Sports Direct is OVER when the current contract runs out this summer.
The Ibrox club have announced today that they will renovate the megastore at the club’s stadium – which had previously been under the stewardship of Mike Ashley’s company.
And Record Sport Online can confirm that Sports Direct will now no longer have anything to do with any Rangers stores ahead of next season, bringing to an end a seven year association that has been littered with court cases and controversy.
The shop at Ibrox didn’t sell the Hummel kit of the last two seasons and was still selling tops branded with Puma despite that contract ending in 2018.
Today’s report concludes with:
Commercial director James Bisgrove told the Rangers website: “The club is incredibly excited to introduce its new kit & retail partner to Rangers supporters world-wide imminently.
“This represents a clean slate and marks the start of a new era in the club’s commercial retail operations. The partnership will be a significant step forward in Rangers’ recent history.”
