Trending
Celtic News Now
Celtic Quick News on News Now
Celtic Quick News
You are at:»»Sports Direct with humiliating control

Sports Direct with humiliating control

1208
By on CQN BLOG & Comments

Records published by the Intellectual Property Office yesterday show Sports Direct own quite a lot of trademarks, including:

Rangers
Scope of trademark: organisation of sporting activities.
This property has not been licenced to the football club, or joint ventures like Rangers Retail Ltd.  Sports Direct own the rights to call a football team Rangers.

Rangers (again)
Scope: from clothing to trinkets and everything in between.
Owned by Sports Direct, licenced to Rangers Retail Ltd

Glasgow Rangers Football Club
Scope: clothes trinkets, etc.
Owned by Sports Direct, licenced to Rangers Retail Ltd

RFC, Broxi Bear, The Gers, Follow Follow, Ibrox, Rangers News, Rangers Travel and all the crests, badges and logos are all owned by Sports Direct and licenced to Rangers Retail Ltd, which is 76% owned by the Sports Direct group.

So if the club want to call themselves Rangers, or Glasgow Rangers, they need to cut a deal with Mike Ashley.  The most humiliating aspect of the whole thing is that the new board appeared to know nothing about this until the Intellectual Property Office published the details yesterday.  The lack of due diligence is breathtaking.

The only things Ashley seems to have ignored is that pejorative nickname they complain about so much, and the phrase Murray Park, although he has security over the training ground of that name.

We warned them repeatedly.  Ashley was in control and had the opportunity to ensure he got what he wanted before the EGM.  One of the richest men in Europe, he is a formidable opponent and known to be utterly ruthless.

You can’t bully him.  Better to recognise this reality and accept your subservient future than create a scenario where even another liquidation event would not free the ‘Rangers’ football brand from the ironclad yolk of a man you’ve made your enemy.

What have the lemmings done to themselves?  We were told Mike Ashley was a business man and he would acquiesce as this was just business.  In the history of business miscalculations this is up there with the guy at Pye who rejected The Beatles.

It’s all their own work, they can’t blame the SFA, SPL, SFL, Celtic, Her Majesty’s Revenue’, the BBC or Craig Whyte.  A recovery which would have been difficult enough is now completely and predictably wrecked.

Fancy a trip to Dublin for the Ireland-Scotland game in June?  There’s a bus leaving Glasgow with Ireland and Scotland (but all Celtic) fans.  Two nights in a Dublin hotel, travel and match ticket among the Ireland fans for £200.  Let me know if you’re interested, celticquicknews@gmail.com

Click Here for Comments >
Share.

About Author

1,208 Comments
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. ...
  5. 12
  6. 13
  7. 14
  8. 15
  9. 16
  10. 17
  11. 18
  12. ...
  13. 32

  4. blantyretim is praying for the Knox family on

    sp

     

    Tbj is a demon, cracking Bhoy and a true friend

  5. Cowiebhoy on

    Roy C

     

     

    Yes was thinking that on 2nd viewing – Thanks :-)

     

    Tell ye as well that Pat Stanton was some player in his 2 seasons with us

     

     

    Emilyfaethebrig, at 6, you make more sense than your Maw ;-) and Da

     

     

    JFH – St Ninians, Raploch and Cowie all on list to close, Bannockburn and Stirling to remain open

     

     

    Hail Hail

  7. gearoid1998 on

    Roy C playing his usual blinder.

     

     

    Was thinking ( just like Charlie) about statues on Celtic way. Many would be deserving but I would love to see Jimmy Mc Grory honoured “Mc Grory of the Arsenal just doesn’t sound right”.

     

    HH

  9. sipsini on

    praecepta….

     

     

    Great post.

     

     

    How lucky were you to meet the Caesar in his prime.

     

     

    When I was a kid I could only dream of it, even now on being lucky enough to meet any of the Lisbon Lions I’m lost for words.

     

     

    Something I’ll need to to address, too shy, I suppose.

  11. theglasgowcelticway on

    RC

     

     

    Think the Thistle game was the week before we beat Oldco 2-1 at Ibrox. Could be wrong though.Loved the Spoting Lisbon game.

  12. TBJ says Wee Oscar Knox is in heaven with the angels on

    Starry

     

     

     

    all part of being a good tim

     

     

     

    aow

     

     

     

    the stones come in two sizes — the biggest being about 250mm square -limited to the club crest ( mandatory) with room for 30 letters of text

     

     

    I posted earlier the text I used and that was spread over a big stone with a smaller one beneath

  16. blantyretim is praying for the Knox family on

    There are so many greats in the Celtic family but I firmly believe that it is a great move to have a living legend added to the Celtic way and IMO Billy should have his place beside Bro Walfred , Jinky and Jock Stein at the top of the Celtic way

  18. Herbo on

    Talk was in the pub about the Billy McNeill statue.

     

     

    Although everyone was in agreement that the big man deserved to be immortalised in this way, some voiced concern that more statues would devalue the ones already there. I disagreed.

     

     

    There is plenty of room all round the ground, and to be honest, there really isn’t a lot of players who would deserve one after over 120 odd years. I think that the way the game has gone, that probably won’t change much.

     

     

    Personally I’d love to see a Jimmy McGrory one.

     

     

    As an often critic of the PLC board I say credit to them for this decision.

     

     

    “In the heat of Lisbon.”

  19. Dontbrattbakkinanger on

    ‘Intellectual property’ and Sevco in the same sentence

     

     

    Puts the ole moron into oxymoronic.

  20. Jimmynotpaul on

    Roy Croppie.

     

    Once again thank you for all the memories.

     

    I’m watching the golf and reading the blog. Your postings are making it very enjoyable.

     

    Praecepta

     

    Loved your story about big Billy. I bet you never tire telling that. Magic memories.

  23. Art of War on

    Tbj- sorry mate didn’t mean to step on yir toes. Took the dog out with the missus and didn’t scroll back. Doing so now. :-)

  24. Cowiebhoy on

    BT

     

     

    I would love to see a statue to all the lions, the one with the full team and big Jock on their shoulders ?

     

    Now that would be special

     

     

    Hail Hail

  26. praecepta on

    sipsini

     

     

    Back then the players mingled with the support – Lions/CSA dinners etc.

     

     

    Fair chance I met and chatted with BT’s Dad before he was born! :-)

  36. setting free the bears for Res. 12 & Oscar Knox on

    Wonderful wee mis-speak from Radio Shortie tonight.

     

     

    They were debating Nina Carberry’s chances to be the first female to ride the winner in the Grand National, and someone who sounded a lot like Jim Delahunt said “That would be a great thing for sexual opportunities!”

     

     

    Now, I know the girl would be delighted to win but I think she might confine herself to shaking hands with well-wishers :-)

  37. theglasgowcelticway on

    Think the Chris Morris picture is of Oldco scoring in the last minute of the 89 cup final, unfortunately for them Cooper had just fouled Bonner.

  38. Tom McLaughlin on

    Cowiebhoy –

     

     

    The statue of the Lions is a good idea, but how about one of those sculptures you see embedded into a wall? That would perfectly depict the picture you describe. It could be embedded onto the wall at the entrance to the Lisbon Lions stand.

  41. winning captains on

    Have added the raffle to CQNBookstore.com

     

     

    TBJ has organised a CQN Memorial stone at Celtic Park for the CQN’ers we have lost.

     

     

    He has funded this himself in the meantime and tonight CQN is having a raffle to re-imburse TBJ.

     

     

    Tickets are £5 each and you can buy 1, 2 or 4. There is a small handling fee from the payment company (Stripe) but apart from that ALL funds will be passed to TBJ.

     

     

    When we reach surpass the total needed – around £300 – we will stop the raffle. CQN will pick 5 winners at random – from the CQN Beanie – and each winner will get any two CQN books of your choice and some whisky.

     

     

    http://www.cqnbookstore.com

  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. ...
  5. 12
  6. 13
  7. 14
  8. 15
  9. 16
  10. 17
  11. 18
  12. ...
  13. 32