Rangers being sued for £9.5m by Elite Sports (Hummel brand partner in UK)

Kinghornloyal said:
So having had a wee look at timeliness etc.

So in 2016 King said that the club had given notice to sever ties with Sports Direct and had paid back £5m loan to get our trademarks etc back.

We ended up with Hummel and Elite and somehow had to pay off Sports Direct for £3m to get out of his deal. King made it clear again we were clear of Ashley and to continue buying strips etc. So the fans done this and in 2019 we were taken to court by sport direct as we hadn't given them an opportunity to match the deal we had with Hummel/Elite.

We lost this case and had to pay another £960k to Sports Direct and were told we couldn't continue with the Hummel/Elite deal.

So upto that point we had achieved £2.8m in sales which Hummel/Elite refused to pay us. We then had to find new shirt manufacturers for the 2020/21 season.

We signed with Castore (Believing we were free of Sports Direct) and at the same time started court proceedings to claim back the £2.8m. That went to court and we lost that one aswell as the court decided we shouldn't have been In that contract. So we couldn't claim the money.

Fast forward to the recent court case that went against us again with Sports Direct. It was claimed again we didnt give sports Direct an option to match our Castore deal and we lost again and had to pay them something like £8m.

Now today comes the news that Hummel/Elite are actually suing us for loss of sales even though a court ordered us not to continue with the deal. The deal with them was for £10m. They managed to keep £2.8m from a deal that the court said should be ripped up. But still went in their actual favour and we lost our the fans money.

Now if we were unable to use Hummel/Elite from 2020/21 onward how can they sue us when we didnt have a contract for those years and infact the 3 year deal due to run out in 2021. They are actually trying to claim money from the last 2 year Castore Deal. This is confusing..

Why back in 2016 and 2019 was it quite clearly said to us by King that we were clear of Ashley.
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thanks for summarising the timeline. provides a helpful picture of the sheer ineptitude at the top of rangers football club.

I struggle to think of any other club in the uk which goes through as much self-inflicted damage as we seem to. we've got a massive and loyal fanbase, what the fück is wrong with our business model that we can't take advatange of that and consistently turn that support into profit for the plc and success on the park.

90% of other clubs manage that, in proportion to the size of their support.
 
Bluebluecee said:
Does anyone at Rangers read the small print when they sign these deals off,someone needs to be held to account and their arse booted out the door
Millions of pounds paid out because of incompetence and our board just seem to shrug their shoulders as if its pennies
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This isnt misinterpretation of small print that has caused this, this is ignoring the main element of a deal that has caused all of this.

The incumbent incompetents on the board are trying to blame the other incompetent in the saga in King.

They should all leave and in reality as a group of shareholders we should be considering action to pursue them
 
gd93 said:
thanks for summarising the timeline. provides a helpful picture of the sheer ineptitude at the top of rangers football club.

I struggle to think of any other club in the uk which goes through as much self-inflicted damage as we seem to. we've got a massive and loyal fanbase, what the fück is wrong with our business model that we can't take advatange of that and consistently turn that support into profit for the plc and success on the park.

90% of other clubs manage that, in proportion to the size of their support.
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90% of clubs aren't hamstrung with a deal that we got left with by Ashley’s placemen. That's what's at the root of everything here.
 
Kinghornloyal said:
So having had a wee look at timeliness etc.

So in 2016 King said that the club had given notice to sever ties with Sports Direct and had paid back £5m loan to get our trademarks etc back.

We ended up with Hummel and Elite and somehow had to pay off Sports Direct for £3m to get out of his deal. King made it clear again we were clear of Ashley and to continue buying strips etc. So the fans done this and in 2019 we were taken to court by sport direct as we hadn't given them an opportunity to match the deal we had with Hummel/Elite.

We lost this case and had to pay another £960k to Sports Direct and were told we couldn't continue with the Hummel/Elite deal.

So upto that point we had achieved £2.8m in sales which Hummel/Elite refused to pay us. We then had to find new shirt manufacturers for the 2020/21 season.

We signed with Castore (Believing we were free of Sports Direct) and at the same time started court proceedings to claim back the £2.8m. That went to court and we lost that one aswell as the court decided we shouldn't have been In that contract. So we couldn't claim the money.

Fast forward to the recent court case that went against us again with Sports Direct. It was claimed again we didnt give sports Direct an option to match our Castore deal and we lost again and had to pay them something like £8m.

Now today comes the news that Hummel/Elite are actually suing us for loss of sales even though a court ordered us not to continue with the deal. The deal with them was for £10m. They managed to keep £2.8m from a deal that the court said should be ripped up. But still went in their actual favour and we lost our the fans money.

Now if we were unable to use Hummel/Elite from 2020/21 onward how can they sue us when we didnt have a contract for those years and infact the 3 year deal due to run out in 2021. They are actually trying to claim money from the last 2 year Castore Deal. This is confusing..

Why back in 2016 and 2019 was it quite clearly said to us by King that we were clear of Ashley.
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The recent £8m payment still relates to the Elite Hummel deal not being offered to match it.
 
Eddie Doc said:
90% of clubs aren't hamstrung with a deal that we got left with by Ashley’s placemen. That's what's at the root of everything here.
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After the £3m payment to Sports Direct we werent hamstrung by anything all that was required was to offer them chance to match whatever deal we had on the table from others
 
Before we lynch anyone who has ever sat on the board, can anyone establish the facts in layman’s terms?

1) What exactly is the club being accused of?

2) If this has been brewing since 2018, and only a few weeks after the agreement actually started, why has it taken until now to go through the courts?

3) Where has this figure of £9.5m come from?

Regardless of whether we have just been naive, or whether Elite Sports are just a bunch of chancers, we really need to start avoiding dodgy dealers and checking the small print. Too many instances of this sort of thing over the years for it to be bad luck.
 
Surely our lawyer just says doesn’t matter what the figure under Castore is this would never be the sales figure under your shit mob
 
Having worked in the St Enoch Store under Elite, this is my definitive understanding of what is going on.

Disclaimer; this is my understanding mixed with my opinion and some logic. Happy to be corrected on any matter as I’m just passing on what I’ve gathered.

Rangers entered into the deal with Elite, who are partnered with Hummel, and are Hummel’s exclusive UK supplier.

The deal went against our (at the time)current deal with SD, as we didn’t give them a chance to match the deal before accepting Elite’s offer.

Now I think the club were trying to be sneaky here, as from my understanding, they entered into 2 seperate deals. Deal one was a 3 year kit supply deal, in which Elite would provide kits manufactured by their partner Hummel.
We also entered into a 5 year retail deal with Elite, in which Elite would run our retail operations, by way of shops and online. The sneaky aspect of this, was that Elite would be classed as a “Non exclusive Retail Partner”, which I think the club hoped would be a loop hole surrounding SD’s monopoly on the “exclusive retail partner”.

Obviously SD challenged this and in 2018 an injunction was granted which, as Hummel/Elite are now claiming, prevented Rangers from fulfilling their end of the contract. However, it didn’t stop Elite, who, to begin with we’re happy to carry on with their fulfilments, based on assurances from Rangers that they would beat the SD injunction. Obviously I wasn’t privy to whatever Rangers’ obligations were, but I know there was a lot surrounding club premises, branding, advertising, etc etc

Over the coming seasons Elite grew impatient as Rangers seemed to be not making any great waves in the SD case, but seemed happy to receive the benefits of the deal that Elite were fulfilling. (2 shops open, online shop up and running, kits supplied and money paid for season 1 and 2, not to mention a totally separate but in good faith naming sponsorship deal for the training ground).

So come the beginning of season 3, Elite with hold the upfront payment in defiance of Rangers apparent lack of effort to perform any obligations of the contract. Rangers decide to take legal action, and that is the £2/3m that we are suing Elite for, as we claim them withholding money is a breach of contract. From what I was told, it was then Hummel who made the call to end the kit deal as they were angry at Rangers for taking legal action due to breach, when Elite/Hummel felt Rangers were in breach first.

This is what then led to the new deal with Castore, who took on a new Kit Deal and new “Exclusive Retail Deal” (seemingly at the approval of SD).

However, the 5 year “Non Exclusive Retail Deal” with Elite was never terminated. This is why the store in St Enoch remained open for so long. It was running legally under the “non exclusive” contract, along side the “Exclusive” Castore deal. (Which ultimately was Rangers goal to beat SD, have it run along side SD’s “Exclusive” deal which ofcourse the court injunction foiled).

The store in St Enoch only closed when the majority of staff left and they knew they couldn’t hire anyone else to work in it, it wasn’t forced shut by Rangers or anything.

So from that I gather that now Hummel/Elite are suing for loses relating to season 1 and 2, in which they feel they would have made more money had Rangers fulfilled their advertising and branding obligations as well as providing a stadium premises. (Which the SD injunction prevented). Season 3 break down of the contract, they blame rangers for the breach of contract leading to the contract break down. Season 4 and 5 they probably assumed they of gotten a renewed Kit deal due to the coinciding retail deal but even had Rangers not renewed and went with a new supplier, Elite would claim they could still have made money as a retail partner, even with a different kit manufacturer.

So that’s where we are.. we are suing for lost kit sales in S3, blaming Hummel/Elite for the relationship break down due to breach, they are suing for lost sales in S1,S2, S3 and potential sales in S4 and S5, and blaming Rangers for the break down due to breach!

I’ve heard rumours that Elite are going into admin, the Southampton and Millwall statements seem to support it. This being brought back to the forefront is perhaps a last throw of the dice to recoup some money before it goes tits up.
 
RangersEasyOK! said:
After the £3m payment to Sports Direct we werent hamstrung by anything all that was required was to offer them chance to match whatever deal we had on the table from others
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It was that simple? All this for that? If you're right then we're in a much bigger mess than I imagined.
 
The Sun…pinch of salt reading!

The sub-headline says “sued for £9.5m” whilst the quoted text at the end of the article states that they are suing us for lost profit on earnings. There’s a very fūcking big difference between the two and it’s yet again lazy reporting from that toilet paper.

I thought they owed us money, so hopefully it’ll get settled ‘neutrally!’

And despite what some think, Dave King is the only astute businessman I’d trust to wangle us out of this mess in court, as I certainly don’t trust any of the current clowns on the Board.
 
As an MD, a CEO a Executive Officer or whatever you want to title him.

How many times does Stewart Robertson need to be out manoeuvred for him to get the boot?

Park for such a commercially minded individual seems to be found wanting constantly when it comes to commercial deals as well.
 
Reasonably we could have been making £5m/year in net income from merchandise.

Since 2012 and that "sweet heart " deal given to Ashley and the succession of fck ups and expenses including the recent £8m to Ashley, we must have made almost nothing in that time from merchandise.

That's the guts of £50m, absolutely unbelievable amount we could have put to work.
 
everyone thought fat controller would be paid a couple of million at most now everyone in that deal wants a pound of flesh because the case went against us

dont know how anyone can compare the 2 scenarios, when boycotts ects were going on

what laywers were we using and still using because there needing sacked as well
 
Sandbear said:
We were told he was gone before.
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How much would it have cost us if we were still being held to ransom by sports direct?
It was a fight that they had to take on.

This does seem like an act of desperation from Hummel though, why so long after the contract was deemed unlawful and why have they just sat accepting the supposed loss of income until now, allowing it to accumulate.
 
Arkanoid said:
Robertson would surely have been acting out the instructions of King on the retail deal
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robertson is like a head teacher, the amount of %^*& ups under hid watch should she him going before gio

imagine slanty eyes at pork head being in charge after so many

both or senior managers of the board side ( i know robertson is a md ) but basically the same job
 
South Belfast Broxi said:
Our pish legal team make some money off us!
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Have they ever won anything? I'm pretty sure they've lost every single court case. To be honest though, it's obviously been so clear that our board have totally fucked us over, again, and the court case is black and white. If theirs papers signed stating we were in contract with Elite/Hummel, then our lawyers have no chance. Actually just wasting money at this point sending a lawyer to Edinburgh.
 
Tap in said:
Looking at all clubs involved with them last few days , it looks that way. Hopefully.
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It's Hummel who are suing us, not Elite. Hummel manufacturer strips, Elite distribute and sell them. Everton get their strips from another supplier, so don't have same problems as Millwall etc.
 
Whilst I have no idea what if anything Hummel are entitled to, the headline is extremely misleading. Just because you sue for a large figure doesn’t mean to say that’s what you are entitled to.
claims are often inflated so as to ensure the respective lawyers are entitled to Court of Session costs.
It will be very interesting how this is quantified and if indeed their claim is valid at all.
 
sheddensbear said:
It's Hummel who are suing us, not Elite. Hummel manufacturer strips, Elite distribute and sell them. Everton get their strips from another supplier, so don't have same problems as Millwall etc.
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It’s Elite mate. From the article in the OP.

RANGERS football club are being sued by a firm linked with a former kit supplier for more than £9.5million in lost sales.

The figure is detailed in paperwork lodged by briefs representing Elite Sports Ltd, the brand partner of Hummel sportswear.
 
Exactly, just going to run up a massive bill on Lawyer payments, and lose, because how can they win when its all wrote down on contracts. And the Lawyers will probably be bending us over for £ per case, or worse, per hour.
 
albop said:
robertson is like a head teacher, the amount of %^*& ups under hid watch should she him going before gio

imagine slanty eyes at pork head being in charge after so many

both or senior managers of the board side ( i know robertson is a md ) but basically the same job
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Surprised he has managed to last this long with us tbh I always had him as a short term appointment at the time with us overhauling and improving as we rebuilt and progressed but let's face it he has massively fell short on many occasions overseen some terrible managerial appointments amongst all the other shocking decisions and bad PR which continues to plaque us and he was regularly ridiculed on the SPFL board.

In summary he should have been sacked some time ago.
 
sheddensbear said:
It's Hummel who are suing us, not Elite. Hummel manufacturer strips, Elite distribute and sell them. Everton get their strips from another supplier, so don't have same problems as Millwall etc.
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Everton have a deal with Elite too, they only have a kit supply deal though and not a retail deal, their retail ops are ran by a different company (Fanatics I believe). However they gave Elite the go ahead to turn the old Rangers shop in Belfast, into an Everton store, well it’s half Everton half Leeds but that’s another story! :))

Edit, Also, I love the pettiness of Everton, they have a shop at the stadium, and when the Liverpool One shopping centre opened up, they opened a second shop in there. They then named their stadium store Everton One, and their shopping centre store Everton Two, that way the address reads;
Everton Two
Liverpool One
:))
 
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BlueStar50 said:
“Best In Class” :mad:
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I’m actually glad Bennet came out with that.

It sums up the absolute chasm that exists between our board and reality.

Nearly as embarrassing as Parks gushing praise of our football department in the annual accounts, written about 3 weeks before he sacked the manager.
 
Looking at the Court of Session rolls today, the motion was Elite Sports Group Ltd v The Rangers Football Club Ltd. Per Companies House, it looks as though that Elite company is ultimately owned by Elite Corporation Limited, which is in turn majority owned by a Neil Friar. I am a bit more comforted that it looks to me like this is Elite suing us rather than Hummel.
 
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