Sports Direct have won another round in their long running legal battle with the club from Ibrox.
Dave King declared himself as the victor in a June 2017 media conference after two years in dispute with Mike Ashley’s firm but a few months later the club accounts revealed that the club had paid £3m for their victory with a new contract replacing the previous one with Sports Direct.
In the summer of 2018 the Ibrox club switched their kit deal from Puma to Hummel with a firm called Elite brought in to distribute the kit but the club failed to offer matching rights to Sports Direct International which set off a long running saga.
The High Court has already ruled in favour of Sports Direct’s claim that their contract was breached but now they have kicked out a claim from the Ibrox club to counter-sue Hummel/Elite for £2.4m after the Danish firm cut short their three year deal and held on to monies due to the club.
Sports Direct are still waiting on their pay-out for the 2018 contract breach but another £2.5m funding source was put out of reach today as The Sun reports:
Today, in a 2-1 split decision, a Court of Appeal in London panel said that allowing Rangers to sue Elite to collect the cash would go against an injunction aimed at preventing further breaches of the original agreement between the Glasgow club and SDI.
Judge Stephen Phillips wrote: “Rangers entered into the Elite/Hummel Agreement in flagrant breach of its obligations to SDIR under the agreement, as part of an ongoing illegitimate campaign to deprive SDIR of its contractual rights.
”The court will require strong reasons to permit Rangers to benefit from that wrongful act without SDIR’s consent, particularly through the use of the court’s own processes.”
Sports Direct and House of Fraser, both Ashley firms, are the only High Street outlets retailing the current kit manufactured in China, India and Turkey by Castore Sport. The Ibrox club are paying the legal costs for both sides in the legal dispute.