Today I had, via Skype, a very informative sit-down with a trusted source.
He was able to flesh out what I had posted late last night.
It really is a bizarre story.
My takeaway from the lengthy chat was that the Sevco High Command has scored a massive own goal on this retail deal.
I had to clarify several times what he was telling me because I wanted to be exactly sure what he was saying.
He told me that if only the Blue Room chaps had waited until Monday (July 9th 2018) then they would have been legally in the clear on this.
That was the deadline for Ashley.
My guy stated that the Sevco people were either:
- Incredibly stupid
- In receipt of very bad legal advice.
I interjected that (1) and (2) were not necessarily mutually exclusive.
A point, in fairness, that he readily conceded.
He also reminded me that Ashley is still holding onto some unsold Puma stock and the cash value of that could come into any future court proceedings.
I asked him how he thought this would play out and his first observation I found particularly illuminating:
“The court case will reveal the precise details of the retail deal that was struck last summer between Ashley and King”.
Of course, it might be difficult for Mr King having to attend a UK court in person at the moment.
I’m sure that is not lost on General Ashley.in litigation for quite a while on this matter.
That would mean that the basket of assets would not be able to sell any merchandise to their culturally unfortunate customer base.
I have heard from another well-placed source that the folk at Hummel are concerned that counterfeit garments might rush in to fill a vacuum which had been created by pending litigation.
I understand that Mr Paul Murray was playing golf at Loch Lomond when the papers were served for this action.
My information is that this rather spoiled his day.
I told my guy that I was rather puzzled as to why Mr King and Mr Murray were named as individuals on the court papers.
My confusion was that if they were being held personally liable could that mean that they had been personally benefiting from the Rangers Retail Limited deal?
My source told me that might very well be the case.
He, of course, couldn’t possibly comment.
I must say I was puzzled by this answer.
The same impeccably placed source told me in the weeks after the Off Licence Putsch of March 2015 that Ashley was a vengeful man.
He reminded me of this today.
“I said three years ago that it doesn’t matter how long it takes him, but he WILL get them”.
After speaking to him I tried a normally helpful Shirebrook source.
He was rather reticent, but would only say that their camp was confident of securing a victory in court.
He stated to me that the fact that the judge had granted the injunction had demonstrated that Ashley’s highly expensive legal team had prepared the groundwork for this move.
So what happens next?
Well if the judge considers there is a case to answer then there could be a date set for a full hearing.
Given past behaviour, Ashley’s legal people will probably seek to continue with for the injunction until then.
If that were to happen then the Sevco merchandising revenue will flat line just at a time when they desperately need it.
In a parallel universe, Celtic are tied up in litigation and New Balance cannot sell a single item with a Celtic crest on it.
In that same dimension, the sports desks in Glasgow are all over the story spelling out the dire financial implications for the Parkhead club.
That was the decade that was.
It was ten years ago today that this site first made an entrance into the Fitba blogosphere.
I think it is fair to say that it has been quite a decade on here.
It isn’t my intention to adumbrate what it has become over the years.
This site is entirely searchable and it is all here right back to July 7th 2008.
My life was very different a decade ago.
I had three school-age children, the Celtic Tiger was stalking Ireland and Rangers were still alive.
This site has been an accidental success.
There was a role for a named journalist who would go after Ibrox stories without fearing any of the normal sanctions that can be imposed on the Glasgow stenographers.
I do not have nor do I want a press pass to Ibrox.
Consequently, there was no carrot or stick that would get me to obey the normal rules on Rangers.
I have had lots of help along the way with my work here.
Some of my sources have taken real risks in reaching out to me and I will always be grateful to them.
However, my greatest debt of gratitude is to you the reader for your continuing support.
My pledge to you is that this site will remain free to view.
Moreover, the content will never contain any contaminated lamb or harmful PR additives.
Davies Left Peg on Twitter saying that the injunction has been extended til December pending a full trial.
https://twitter.com/davysleftpeg1/status/1016680120998924288
Without the likes of your input Phil all we would have is the likes of Gannon this morning giving some credibility to Shay Logan’s claim of being racially abused by Celtic fans.
Logan gets dogs abuse for being a complete twat, not the colour of his skin.
Gannon goes on to ask what are the police doing to protect the Dons full back from these nasty racist fans!
Aye Gannon, that will be the same police that tap their feet along to a number of proscribed ditties at Ibrox or wherever.
A big thank you for ten years of digging and working to show the corruption that is ruining Scottish football and doing so with elan. Thank you for the veracity and humour. Also a big well done for doing it all fairly, with decency unlike the vitriol shown by some “fellow” bloggers obsessed with money and your good self. You never retaliate. Thank you.
Great comment,✅ Encore
As Conor McGregor says he is on a different level,well that applies to Phil and his work,Different Class.HH?
Happy Tenth Anniversary Phil ….. I feel compelled to thank you most sincerely for your honest endeavour over the years because life just wouldn’t be the same without this blog .
Hail Hail to your good self , your invaluable sources and to my fellow readers …. a wee Holy Trinity of our own .
Happy Anniversary Phil, an absolute joy to read over the years, putting our weasel MSM to shame!!
HH
Hummel Pie anyone ?
Would be interesting to know the details of the Hummel deal and what protections they have, minimum sales etc. Surely they’ve paid attention to what’s been happening in previous years ?
I’m sure your on it Phil !!
Happy 10th Anniversary Phil. It’s almost a daily fix coming on your site and not just reading your fine contributions but many others.
You can see from the envy and insults from Jj that he can’t come close, yet incredibly he accuses you of plagiarism. Laughable. Your investigations put what excuses itself for journalism in Scotland to shame, yet sevco are handing it on a plate to them almost daily. Keep it up mate. Good luck.
News just in… Face painter asked to quote on full (waterproof) body paint & enough turps to fill a communal bath every other weekend at Ibrox
Good Stuff Phil Today and the last ten years.
The irony of the SD court injunction is that King is staying out of Britain for fear of the hand on the shoulder at immigration. Thus he can’t attend any court should he be subpoenaed
So Phil biggest compliment I can give to you is, I thought you were around longer. Being an advocate of PMcC’s wonderful work i expanded and you were there. Paul though moved on, my oldest lass broke that news to me,family friend, devastated.
But well done Phil.
I have an image in my head of a hun home game where all huns are banned from wearing the humming kit until the legal case is settled with general jumbo, they are all sporting body paint hun tops and king cobra mediaeval hair cuts, hun widgets I suppose, with a glazed vacant zombie look and heads markedly out of proportion with the rest of their bodies…….wait a minute this no dream they were all in Cowdenbeath last week…..F***sake
Here is to the next 10 all the best….
It’s been brilliant reading your work over the years phil. I hope for another 10 years and more.
Congratulations on a decade of great achievement! And once again thank you for the regular stream of exclusives.
Happy anniversary keep riding a big white horse through the fields of stories. There should be Forests of trees cut down to keep in print the sheer amount of articles newspapers are ignoring whilst attempting to sell or undermine our best players. You are one of a handful of often maligned internet journalists who serve the public with truth even if the peepul don’t want to know. Keep up the great work and I hope to be reviewing that book of yours soon hopefully before that wee Chinese town notices a gap in the market as well and starts printing forgeries of the Squad Lol. If it’s sold out on amazon must mean they flew off the shelves in the warehouse so congratulations on another best seller too
Bonne anniversaire mon brave.
This might sound petty in fact it does sound petty but please please stop saying that Sevco are Govanites I come from Govan and I cringe every time I see this
They come from IBROX!!!!!!!!!
I’ve been saying that for years and as a 78yr old ex Govanite it does my brain in when I hear or read it.
Okay. I will now personally refer to them as “Ibroxonions”! Naw! Feck it. “Orcs” is easier to spell and quicker to type!
Go maire tú an lá, Phil, and more power to you.
Have sent a modest birthday gift in token of my appreciation…
MTG
Congratulations on your Tenth Anniversary Phil you are a wonderful journalist. I can only imagine the time and dedication you put in it’s absolutely admirable. I would like to take this opportunity to say a very big Thank You and send my best wishes for the future to you and your family whom I am certain are a huge support to you in your career. Hail Hail.
Sincere congratulations Phil, the time has flown in and you have been faithful to your mission, a stout defender of all that is true and fair in this world.
Your readership will continue to steer clear of poor imitations especially gaga.
There was an overweight chap outside our local boozer , on champions league night, (may) sporting an orange Hummel replica shirt. He once getting pics left right and centre. Almost 2 months later These fakes will be flooding the place and hurting the rangers mercy sales.
Wee squirrel on the Rankers site calling for the SFA to fire it’s chairman.
There are now about 6 elephants in the Ibrokes trophy room, all comfortably accommodated.
Mind you they are disguised with face paint so maybe that’s why no one there has seen em.
Happy birthday Phil
Hope the head man takes legal action they’re calling him out saying he’s a UN trustworthy person That WILL effect his status ?
Happy 10th!
The point about a ‘ counterfeit vacuum’ made me smile as a thought entered my head…
On a recent work visit to China I was introduced to the seemingly commonplace evolution of ‘product specific towns’..
On our little hosted tour of some industrial plants in the smaller (but still huge) towns that hugged the course of the Yantze River I was shown places where the entire town economy was built around the manufacture and sale of ONE product. ( not a concept completely unknown in the history of the west I suppose when you think of Stoke, Northampton etc)
I was introduced to the delights of ‘fan belt town’ – yes, that’s all they made there…. Any size, any vehicle. We saw a place where everyone was involved in the manufacture of plastic castor inserts for office chairs, and others that made drinking straws ( whole town), umbrellas ( ‘brollywood’ to us) and other often plastic related but humdrum products..
I now have this image in my mind of some enterprising town somewhere on the banks of the Yantze ( having spotted a market opportunity) working day and night to churn out tens of thousands of ‘Orange Taps’ to meet the demands of Govanians around the globe.
I just hope they get the sizing right… Those oriental sizes can be notoriously misleading.. What size should your average 4XL Rainjuurz fan order to be sure of a good fit?
Remember, to satisfy the demand which will surely be generated by the fans of the best supported club in the world, they’ll need to be able to churn out at least 500,000 of each version!
Happy 10’th anniversary Phil, and here’s to as much hilarity and enjoyment from reading your blogs in the future as in the last 10 years. As they say in my parts ” long may your lum reek”.
Don’t think a press pass at the Bigot dome would be advisable, they don’t like the fact you knew what was going on and tried too tell them , they were and are in the $ hit. It’s all your fault ;).
Phil… Congratulations..#10
You have always been my “go to”…
There are many attempts to undermine,muddy the waters for you but you always remain humble and factual.
IF you were not calling out the miscreants,pr gurus and downright charlatans, I dread to think what state Scottish Football would be in..
Sadly no others are like you and no questions are asked..
Please continue…
Christ, ten years. My own life is oh so different from those days, some for the better, some well…….
I love the blog Phil, and I love the fact that even the knuckle daggers are forced to come here and read the real news about their abomination of a football club.
HH
I really should buy shares in Reckitt Benckiser, Gaviscon sales must be overtaking Buckfast sales in Govan these days.
Congrats on 10 years. Remarkable achievement for the blog. No disrespect to your hard work and efforts, but I’ve never seen a circus entity like this that just serves up farce after farce and self-inflicted damage. Cheers Phil and thanks!
Phil. For the hard of learning (me) can you explain the significance of the 9th July date in respect of RIFC “being in the clear.”? Is there something they did, or did not do, prior to this date that has led to this situation?
Congratulations on your 10th anniversary. Long may you continue to wound them.
Quite a scoop you’ve had the last few days. ?
Congratulations on 10 years and, I suspect, more than 20 million hits. ?
I will need to verify your story on the JJ website Phil…. 🙂
Interesting where that leaves Hummel, who are way out of pocket and now facing costs holding onto the new tat in storage. I would have thought the manufacturer would have been working deals with the sellers etc to agree a contract so I am assuming that has not happened or if it has with another vendor, maybe JD-Sport then more money on legal potentially wasted.
Dave has made this mess, sevco on a deal that is purported to be half the last Puma deal could be hit legally by 2 or 3 companies over contract failings and of course do not have a shirt to sell and wont for months.
The other thing to consider is the cold shoulder impact. Would big Mike want to get embroiled in that? Would any other Sports goods’ seller? I think Mike is either using the retail grip to squeeze king/sevco or he is looking to throw out a competitor’s deal with sevco. Of course if Mike takes on the contract he can then squeeze Hummel who could in turn reduce the sevco profit per jersey. It’s looking like the old retail deal was pretty good now.
Nobody leading sevco know much about running a football club. That should be one of the biggest worries to the Klan. But thrashing an unfit English League 4 club just relegated and into their first game pre-season takes all the worry away.
I have always wondered what would keep someone glib and shameless who loves his nose in the trough at a failing business. Maybe the devil is into the retail after all.
It will all come out in the washing.
Celtic merchandise flying off the shelf today trust me, 3 away shirts purchased.
Many congratulations Phil. 10 years is a real landmark.
Phil you’re playing a blinder and your services are very greatly appreciated by Us All.
You report honestly and with real true investigative journalism,something you do not see in sports journalism in Scotland ???????
I would like to thank you again for All that you’ve done for the ‘fitba 4th estate’ no one else comes close.
Thanks for everything,for without you We’d All be in the dark.
Keep up the great work.??
HH?
Estoy De acuerdo Senor Miguel
So sorry Phil I forgot to say well done and Happy 10th Anniversary.
The useless sports journalists in Scotland will one day have to actually do their jobs,either that or you’ll still be doing this in your old age.Even then in your 80’s say,I’d rely more on you more than anything they ever printed.
Send them a link to your archives,attach a wee note to say,’copy and paste this,then learn it off by heart and then do your fu@&ing jobs.’
Ádh mór i ngach rud a dhéanann tú, is cuma cad a d’fhéadfadh a bheith ann.
In english;Good luck in everything you do, whatever it may be.
HH?
Happy Anniversary Phil and I hope you keep at it.
The blue room chappies appear to be the Frank Spencer of business management and another comedy skit livens up to keep us chuckling for some time yet. HH