Sports Direct with humiliating control

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