Of course, it wasn’t meant to be like this.
The Stenography Corps had breathlessly reported that General Ashley’s lot had been rendered hors de combat.
It was trumpeted by the usual suspects in the Stenography Corps as a massive victory for the Sevco High Command.
Ever the contrarian, I wrote this on May 2nd this year about the Castore deal.
With Pavlovian predictability, the Ibrox klanbase indulged in celebratory reflexes about Fenian blood and child abuse.
This chap took the news of the Castore deal at face value and did not question if there could be a sting in the tail.
It was almost as if they have no collective memory of the events of 2017.
Here is how the Sun described developments three years ago.
If you really must, then you can read it here.
The spin certainly worked on the Ibrox klanbase in 2017.
They were exultant at this great victory over Ashley by the Convict Chairman.
Remember this?
The reality was that three years ago Ashley had emerged from the original Charles Green initiated deal considerably better off.
To release themselves from the original contract the Sevco High Command had paid Big Mike £3.5m.
The critical point is that the dignified folks who gleefully emptied the Ibrox megastore were not aware of this until many months later.
Moreover, the fine fellows at Klub 1872 had also shelled out to buy Ashley’s RIFC shares at a premium price.
So that the great victory over Ashley in 2017 was, like everything else at Sevco, phoney.
Now in 2020, there is another great victory over Big Mike.
Listen to this from Sevco’s new commercial chap James Bisgrove.
The Castore deal is mentioned at 05.40
“…step away from some of those legacy relationships…”
Really?
Oh dear.
Let’s be clear about a couple of things here:
General Ashley did not capitulate to Sevco in the recent litigation.
Sports Direct had the upper hand in various court appearances, and Judge Lionel Persey had already awarded Sports Direct costs.
The only thing to be ruled on was the damages owed to Sports Direct.
That is the type of crucial forensic detail that is conveniently ignored by the Stenography Corps.
Apparently, it is important that a legal fact should not get in the way of the feel-good pish that they produce for their dignified demographic.
Whatever the minutiae of the new arrangement it will almost certainly be heavily in Big Mike’s favour.
What is coming out of Sevco at the moment is fire fighting spin which is being faithfully regurgitated by the Stenography Corps.
All was well until this announcement on July 1st by Sports Direct on their Facebook page:
“New Rangers Kit lands exclusively at Sports Direct August 1st.”
It immediately triggered the Dunkirk Spirit among the Ibrox klanbase.
It was clear to the Sevco High Command that they would have to soothe their credulous customers.
Here is an attempt to firefight the truth of the situation.
Tom Beahon of Castore was offered up to a Sevco blog to soothe the dignified.
You can read it here.
However, I think that this is the key section:
“The truth is that Rangers were in a really difficult position given their previous deals, due to well documented and long term legacy issues. Whatever brand came in and offered, we knew Sports Direct had a legal right to match that deal and if they so chose they could have kept Rangers as a partner pretty much for however long they wanted. This could have been an endless situation for Rangers. That was the situation when we came in and did our partnership directly with Rangers. What Sports Direct looked for in order not to exercise their legal right to match was an ability to sell a limited number of Rangers product, as occurs commonly with club kit partners and high street retailers, again that is not in any way strange of different and would be the case in other deals. Under our direct partnership between Castore and Rangers, Sports Direct, as well as several other third party retailers, will have the option to purchase from Castore and then the ability to sell Rangers products. That is the situation.”
So, let’s got back to the fundamental issue.
Sports Direct stated this on July 1st:
“New Rangers Kit lands exclusively at Sports Direct August 1st.”
Of course, the keyword there is “exclusively”.
Now, are Sports Direct telling an actionable fib or are they being truthful?
Which is it?
Given the legal ramifications of the former explanation, I will go for the latter.
General Ashley has the very best contract lawyers available to him.
The Sevco High Command have the Conveyancing Consigliere.
Over the last few days, I have had several chats with my guy at Shirebrook.
He is a trustworthy source and I have full confidence in the veracity of the information that he shares with me.
However, I’m convinced that he is withholding something.
Now, he did remind me that what Big Mike got in 2017 was superior to the original deal with Charles Green in 2012.
He left it at that…
Therefore, the logical assumption is that the new arrangement in 2020 is even more advantageous to General Ashley’s outfit.
One of the problems faced by any evidence resistant subculture is that they have a collective inability to learn from past events.
Add a complicit media, and you have the recipe for an unedifying Groundhog Day; one where the Ibrox klanbase are the uncomprehending marks in a never-ending scam.
Meanwhile, the rest of us on Planet Fitba can only look on at their pitiable credulousness.
Plus ça change…
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Ummmm Castore aka Delboy and Rodney categorically stated Big Mike is not a shareholder in their Company. That may be so.
But surely Mash Holdings/Sports Direct own the sweat shop …oops sorry Hi-Tech Manufacturing Facility that is making their kit.
Delicious thought
Those guys at Ibrox Noise are a scream.
Bumping their gums at having to travel to Pittodrie on the opening day whilst, in their words, Hamilton Accies are presented as cannon fodder for Celtic’s opener.
That will be the same Accies who walked away with 3 points on their last visit to Ibrox?
And of course Super Swally had to get a word in as well.
How many trophies did his managerial spell in Govan bring home?
If Mark Walters thinks that Ryan Kent is “Class”, I wonder what his idea of trash would be.
Well, well, who would have thought it. If you want to buy the new Rangers gear on the high street then Sports Direct is the place to go.
Castore and the DUP PR guy at Ibrox cannot deny the fact, much as they have tried to, that Ashley is still on board and still extracting cash from the gullible.
How many times has it been claimed that Mike has left the building?
If he’s made peace with the Ibrox board over the damages claim and is happy to take a slice of the pie from the new kit well good on him.
Of course Rangers would have been aware of Sports Direct’s involvement weeks ago but have kept a lid on it till the season tickets were sold.
A couple of facts from Companies House might be worth considering here.
The Beahon Brothers are no longer persons of significant control at Castore(J Carter Sporting Club Ltd), they haven’t been since earlier in the year.
Around about the same time, February, £7.5M was injected into the company by an unnamed source.
Now, I wonder who that could have been?????
Is ‘How’s Your Head, Hun?’ (BBC1 11:15 Tuesday) worth a watch? Or do we already know the answer …
Given the option of Administration (quickly followed by Liquidation due to toxicity and debts) or giving Ashley retail exclusivity instead of millions due, the Board settled for retail and lying to fans.
The facsimile club only continues because Ashley didn’t insist on his millions due.
Ashley saves them once again. This Billionaire Philanthropist with wealth off the radar truly outperforms Craig Whyte. The fans should applaud as is their gullible norm.
Ashley is in deeper than he was with Charles Green in 2012.
The Communications Manager, the DUP/ Orange Order guy didn’t tell the fans? Can’t be trusted to tell the truth? Nobody should listen to him?
I reckon the new PR guru is pulling strings from DUP regarding money going into the new club . Everything Bisgrove spoke about costs money which they ran out of a long time ago . But now all these projects on the go at the same time could only come from the purse strings of £1.5 billion Teresa May passed on to the wicked witch aka Mrs Doubtfire herself Arlene Foster .
Money for the people of NI heading out the country to a football club in Govan?
I suppose they call it overseas aid.
Problems? All that Castore have allegedly “sold” are 50k worth of “orders”. There’s no “restock” as there’s no actual evidence to suggest that Rangers kit has yet been made, just numbers on a website.
There has also been a 4 month pandemic where work in many garment producers has shut down and for those that may be open Castore will be waaaaay down the pecking order. Plus, how long will it take to make 50k tops?
My prediction is that Castore will struggle to fulfil orders and the shit will hit the fan on the 1st of August.
Look, it was either go into Administration and Liquidation or con the fans yet again.
Conning the fans is always the easy option. They bark but never bite.
Real Rangers Men on the Board. You can rely on us.
The David Murray succulent lamb approach uses the media to con the intellectually challenged fans. It’s all done by Freemasons using Freemasonry. Shafting lowest level Bros.
It’s a highly indebted fiscally challenged club with Accounts warnings, a basket case, never ever profitable. It has never won a top title nor a cup since founded in 2012. They’re buying into a dud at football because the little money there is goes into smart guys pockets.
It was all dumped on a temporary Chairman who doesn’t want the job.
Let’s all laugh at Sevco.
Hello? Hello? Anybody home? So CASTORE has come out and made a statement about Ashley that contradicts earlier CASTORE/Rangers statements on Ashley?
Oh Dear! The cat has leapt from the Sports Direct bag.
Were the fans duped again? Lied to?
As Gordon Waddell wrote in big bold lettering “YOU WANT THE TRUTH? YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!”
The message is clear, fans just stump up, shut up and don’t try and get clever. They must NEVER get the truth.
Leave the Board to f*ck up and blow millions of your money incompetently. Then give them more chumps.
Rangers FC and Sevco FC have both lied to all and sundry for decades. Especially their fans. It’s the ultimate model of fan exploitation.
They’re even living in the belief it’s the same club. 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣🤣😂🤣😂
Swallow, Swallow……..Repeat!
How can it be Repeat?
Surely it’s a new decade and a new era? As the DUP guy marketing ploy goes.
Ashley in Repeat? Not a new era without Ashley?
Just how much lies for how many years will the fuckwits take?
Dave King stated live on tv years ago that he was taking Ashley to court not the club and he personally would settle any amounts with Ashley, out of King’s personal wealth, to get rid of him.
All mendacious lies to hold himself up as a Hero.
Ashley wins yet again. King nowhere to be seen. King doesn’t pay the court awarded millions, Ashley gets the club merch gig indefinitely.
No new era without Ashley thanks to Dave King not footing the bill as promised on tv.
Five years of King. No title wins. No tilt at Champions League. Utter failure.
There a very simple explanation that ties all this up like a bow on a Christmas present.
After King left, the Rangers board finally realized that their best course of action – and the only one that didn’t lead to further litigation – was to actually accede to the terms of the contract that King & Ashley had signed in 2017. That meant the 3rd year of the Hummel/Elite deal resided with SD, consistent with the legal ruling last year. But as that deal bundled together the manufacture of the kits with the distribution, that meant SD needed a kit supplier to partner with. Enter Castore to make the kits.
Now that King is gone and the board is going to “play nice” with Ashley, they need to get the fans on board to avoid a boycott, or worse, a mutiny! So everyone involved agrees that Castore is going to be the public face of the new arrangement, and this is going to be presented to the fans like SD has little or no involvement other than being one of the “many” retail shops fans can purchase the kit and even then on terms commercially beneficial to Rangers.
If everything goes as planned, fans will buy the kits in record numbers, and Rangers, Castore, and SD will make record profits from this deal. But for that to work, fans need to believe that this is a Castore deal with Rangers rather than Castore simply being SD’s supplier.
Often times, the simplest explanation is most likely to be grounded in truth. In this case, the board decided to end their legal troubles (to the extent possible) once DK was out of the picture. With SD fully in control of the contract, they simply hired Castore to supply the kits and be the public face of the whole arrangement. The bigger suppliers – Addidas, Nike, Puma, New Balance, etc – would never go along with such a scheme. But a couple of blokes from Liverpool looking for an opportunity to get into the business… they’re perfect patsies.
The thing is. Old Squinty is NOT out of the scene. He’s still the largest individual shareholder.
That would be a fine theory except that as recently as one minute ago there are no Castore RFC/Sevco shorts on sale in Sports Direct.
https://www.facebook.com/SportsDirect
The post of July 1st is still up.
Either it is an actionable untruth or a statement of fact.
It cannot be both.
August 1st is launch day is it not?
CASTORE have said Ashley is in the picture indefinitely.
Ashley has said he has exclusive retailing rights.
Judge Persey said Ashley was going to get many millions and encouraged RIFC PLC to do a deal with Ashley.
Ashley didn’t get many millions from a penniless football club, he got indefinite rights to retail a new branded strip. Exclusively.
He clearly gets a % of every TRFC item sold regardless of who sells it or where it is sold. He is owed millions.
The bust Ibrox Board had to Shyster up as usual and dupe their fans to get their money into Ashley’s pockets.
Big Mike owns them and King’s stupidity on trying to take him on in court has cost them dearly. Over and over again. If King had left the initial contract alone, it would have expired two years ago.
RIFC Plc, Masters of their own demise. Fuckwits extraordinaire, lowest level business brains. #Hubris.
Daily Record, Scottish Sun, Radio Clyde, STV, BBC, Sky, keeps the incredibly gullible fan base thoroughly exploited. SMSM in cahoots with the Board. The failed SDM model persists. #Gullibillies.
Want him to go away? Give him £20m.
I would expect that percentage to be pretty large. If I were a shrewd businessman I would want a pretty hefty cut of sales this year as there’s no guarantee of income from the years thereafter…
They are actually boasting that their ‘retail’ deal also consists of a manky shop in Glasgow City Centre well past it’s best and another shop in Sydney, and that’s it, like there’s no sports shops anywhere in the world between Glasgow and Australia. And the best part? The shop in Sydney is called Rebel Sports ha ha ha, you genuinely couldn’t make it up.
Unrelenting embarrassment for Sevco. Absolutely no business acumen throughout their short history. As already noted, that poor fella Arfield looking more like Benny Hill every day. Though, the former comedian’s military salute was funnier.
Thanks for the article Phil, very revealing imo. Anymore of that and you’ll give the whole of this country an appetite for sports journalism.
‘ol Snake Eyes slithers away and Ashley is back in the room. Surely to goodness one hack must have joined the dots?
Nb: “mugastore” Very good lads!
The klub really are liars and the klan really are that thick. Who’da thunk it? HH
Yea smells like Victory🧤
They do have the option of ordering from Castore or the mugastore , wouldn’t it be funny if those 2 outlets then had to purchase the goods directly from Ashley. Castore get some free advertising and a toe into the market and the hope of doing deals with other clubs that are less complicated.
exclusive – “restricted to the person, group, or area concerned.”
Meanwhile Hummel are pissed off about losing out on the 3rd year of their deal, Elite sports havent gone away , Memorial Walls still want compensated , Dave the cold shouldered King is still the largest shareholder and is owed 5m , Close leasing haven’t been paid neither have the transfer fees for more than a few of the current squad . Did someone mention deferred wages ? I love the smell of naelamb in the morning!
Devastating.
To paraphrase Wilde “One must have a heart of stone to read the misfortunes of Rangers fans without laughing.”
Cheers phil listening to that really made me laugh out loud just what you need in the middle of a big down pour on a shitty day in glasgow still laughing mate honestly
Not much any logical newco alliance fc fans can say apart from….ok Dave, thot u said you wouldn’t sell out us 2012 chaps like the other honest Dave sold out the OLDCO museum relics in edmunster drive …and you also said Mick Ashley wizza mug ….hello hello South Africa are you there?
Wouldn’t it be something if big Mike’s online network were actually shipping Castore’s newly ordered tops out to the gullibillies in a castore bag, big Mike cleaning up. Whole truth’s definitely at a premium right now.
Wonder if big Mike will throw in a complimentary SD ‘ridiculous sized’ mug to torment the hoarde..
With any luck, it will be one of those cute and cuddly Timmy Bears. Heehee!
You just be getting bored of being right… 😂
The Sevco fans seem very confident that if they buy shirts from the Megastore rather than Sports Direct or House of Fraser Mr Ashley won’t get a penny of it. That sounds too good to be true to me…
Apparently the refurbishment store at the new clubs stadium at a cost of 250 grand the tab is being picked up by the Chuckle brothers at Castrol GTX .
So Phil, what you are basically saying, is that big mike will pull the strings for as long as he is minded to? Lovely stuff. HH