A couple of weeks ago Kieran Maguire was reassuring Tom English and Kenny Macintyre that everything at Ibrox was hunky dory.
With two Glasgow clubs involved in this season’s Champions League group stage Celtic had a slight edge due to their long term UEFA co-efficient.
No mention was made of being on UEFA’s watch list for the new Sustainability Regulations which are now dealt with in-house rather than taking the word of the audit team at national associations.
Last week the administrators for Elite Sports Group were given permission to access the accounts for the Castore Sports Ibrox contract which will allow them to assess their claim against the club for breach of contract.
29 minutes 20 seconds into the Price of Football Podcast:
Rangers have got another battle off the pitch. Rangers had a dispute with Mike Ashley, there’s effectively an ongoing boardroom squabble because the former chairman Dave King is constantly throwing darts at the current board.
And Elite Sportswear – effectively Hummel’s distribution people – who went into administration a few months ago. Remember there was all this kerfuffle because there were clubs like Millwall, Coventry and others who weren’t able to sell kit because they didn’t have legal ownership at the time.
One of the things that Elite Sportswear weren’t very happy about was that Rangers had switched their kit manufacturing deal to the new kids on the block in the form of Castore. And they felt that Rangers hadn’t necessarily given them due process. I think Hummel were entitled to match what was offered and they claimed that it wasn’t.
So the administrators are now saying, ‘Well, we’ve spoken to our legal advisors and we think there is a case for going forwards.’
As someone who has worked in insolvency you tend to be quite cautious because you don’t want to spend money on legal claims don’t want to spend money on legal claims that are spurious, you are there to protect the share of creditors.
This is a £9.5m case, Rangers, they are behind Celtic on the pitch, and you know, they’ve still got a fair amount of catching up to do and off the pitch in terms of legacy issues and boardroom issues. There are too many disputes, Celtic are ale to serenely go on and focus on the football and if you have all of these distractions it is never good.
Now, the chances are that this will be settled out of court, either an amount will be agreed or some form of joint pronouncement will be made. But unless Rangers have got a water-tight case this could mean more money being paid out for non-footballing issues at a time when the club is playing catch-up still with Celtic. As we know Scotland is a country where being second is being nowhere .’
After regular injunctions and court action from Sports Direct that greatly reduced Elite/Hummel’s ability to sell kit the Danish firm terminated their three year deal with a season still to run. After that commercial guru James Bisgrove discovered Castore Sport who are now well into their third year running retail operations at Ibrox.
It is unlikely that BBC Scotland will be doing a follow up podcast looking at matters inside Ibrox despite the company losing a Chairman, Sporting Director and Managing Director within a month while creating two share issues.
Other outstanding issues at Ibrox include the Sydney Super Cup, Memorial Wall and the WiFi claim.
Kenny Macintyre, Tom English & football finance expert Kieran Maguire debate Rangers’ finances as the club aim to narrow the gap with Celtic.
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Looks like there is no money left in the Walter Mitty at ibrox. Looks like that klub are back to their auld tricks again,doing more tapping than a blind man’s stick.
If the distributors’ administrators have a case, then so do Hummel. Will Hummel raise an action?
And what about the ongoing litigation at Glasgow Sheriff Court (ignored by the MSM) which is now at Proof stage?
Editor: Elite Sports Group is the UK version of Hummel.