RANGERS have finally started selling new replica football kit in the wake of a row with Mike Ashley's Sports Direct over the rights to sell it.
Mr Ashley, the Newcastle United owner, and his sports company had previously been granted an interim injunction on the sale of new strips made by Danish sportswear Hummel.
But the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement at the end of July to allow Sports Direct to sell the club's branded goods.
Sports Direct argued it should have been given the opportunity to match "some or all" of an offer from a rival.
Rangers announced a new three-year kit deal with manufacturer Hummel in April, but there was no indication when replica strips would be available for supporters to buy.
Now the club has said it is "delighted to announce" that an initial batch of the Hummel ranger of replica kit is now available for sale.
The club said: "We are sorry it has taken a while but now Rangers strips are back."
The scramble for kit when the sales went live at 5.30pm meant fans ended up being held in a queue.
The club added: "Supplies are limited but any orders that can’t be fulfilled immediately will be given priority as further deliveries become available. So, don’t delay. The site is expected to be busy but will be doing all it can to cope with demand."
The club said it hoped to be able to announce further retail partners, including partners for the Rangers Megastore and webstore soon.
Fans welcomed the news, with one saying simply: "At last."
At the High Court in London in July, lawyers representing both sides said that agreements in the dispute had been made and the judge said Rangers had accepted claims made by Sports Direct.
The court was told that Rangers were now negotiating a new deal to sell club merchandise with Sports Direct following an out-of-court settlement.
The judge said Rangers would have to pick up Sports Direct's legal costs of £350,000 as well as their own, estimated to be £185,000. The court heard that bosses at Rangers wanted to sign a new deal with a third party but Sports Direct International Retail Services executives objected and said they should have a chance to match any new offer.
In August, it emerged Rangers had removed Sports Direct livery from the main stand at Ibrox and replaced with new signage carrying the slogan 'We are Rangers'.
Sports Direct's original injunction applied to the three new kits launched by the Glasgow club in August - one blue, one mainly white and one orange.
The Ashley-fronted firm claimed Rangers were in breach of a contract as they had not allowed the company to put in a bid to market and distribute the strips.
The court had been told how fans had become angry over a merchandise deal with Sports Direct after learning the club got about 7p of every £1 spent and had staged a merchandise boycott.
William McCormick QC, who led the Rangers' legal team, said fans thought Mr Ashley pocketed too much of their money and said there was a widespread view that no "self-respecting" Rangers' supporter wore a replica shirt.
Mr Justice Phillips was then told the boycott was over.
At the end of June, last year, Rangers had announced that Mr King's dispute with Mr Ashley was over while confirming a new one-year kit deal with Ashley's retail firm has been agreed.
Mr King then hoped the deal would encourage supporters to end their kit sale boycott and provide a major financial boost as Rangers aim to challenge for the Scottish Premiership title.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel