Rangers Sued For £9.5m By Hummel

[ian1964 10,450]

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by ian1964

[the gunslinger 3,366]

absolute shambles run by idiots

[CammyF 6,892]

Just when you thought the banter years were over, along comes the next episode in the continuing soap-opra that is Rangers Football Club. 

[Bill 13,717]

No wonder we couldn't spend big in the summer

[compo 6,221]

It's a shambles from top to bottom 

[BEARGER 1,829]

Hummel/Elite are having financial troubles at present. 

[BEARGER 1,829]

Southampton FC have announced that their retail operation will be shutting down for a short though unspecified period of time due to issues with an external third party, read on for more details. 

Saints have announced on their official website the need to shut down both online operations as well as their retail outlets, due to ongoing issues with Elite Sports Group, the external third party who manage the retail side of things for not only Southampton FC but a number of other clubs.

Although this is said not to be a long term issue, it does mean that all sales of merchandise will cease for a short period.

A look online shows Elite Sports Group to be "the Exclusive Brand Partner of Danish Football brand Hummel. We activate Bespoke kit programmes for all our clubs, and also manage some of our clubs retail and online operation."

They also seem to provide other merchandise for club's that are not related to the branded playing kit and training gear.

This seems to suggest that the problem for Saints will be stock, although they will have a supply of merchandise, how much of a stock they have and indeed who owns the stock could be open for debate, when it runs out it will take time to source new suppliers etc and that could mean that the lucrative Xmas market could be missed.

The full statement reads as follows 

"The club was recently made aware of significant business and fulfilment challenges being experienced by our external third-party retail partner, Elite Sports Group, who manage the online and physical retail operation of a number of clubs, including ours.

We have been working with Elite Sports Group to fully understand what those challenges are and how we might minimise any disruption for our fans. However, following further developments today, we have taken the difficult decision to end our partnership with them.

This decision allows us to proceed with our contingency plan, but will unfortunately result in the unavoidable closure of our online and physical stores for a short period of time.

We will communicate further once we have confirmed timings for reopening our retail stores, and more information on how we can ensure existing orders are fulfilled. However, in the meantime, any fans who are concerned about existing orders can contact retail@saintsfc.co.uk.

With Black Friday sales and the Christmas shopping period upon us, we recognise the importance of this time of year for supporters wanting to purchase gifts and are doing all we can to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. We thank all our fans for being patient at this time and apologise for any inconvenience."

[BEARGER 1,829]

Millwall and Coventry also cutting ties due to lack of supplies.

[BEARGER 1,829]

Borrowed from elsewhere.

 

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.

[der Berliner 3,288]

Someone needs to get maliciously arrested and then grabs 70odd million from the taxpayer to cover that please ...

 

BTW, I assume this will run a few years from now on.