£9.5m court action against Rangers over football kit sales to 'kick-off'

A multi-million pound court action brought against Rangers over football kit sales will begin next week.

It follows the final procedural hearing in the case brought against the club by sportswear brand Elite Sports Group Ltd.

Elite’s lawyers are pursuing an action against Rangers and are trying to recover £9.5m from the Club.

Elite was the exclusive brand partner to Danish sportswear firm Hummel and it instructed lawyers to go to the Court of Session in Edinburgh last November.

Lawyers claim Rangers breached a contract which allowed the firm to provide the Glasgow team with Hummel kits.

Lawyers for Elite claim the breach occurred when Rangers signed a deal with Castore, a Manchester based brand which counts tennis ace Sir Andy Murray as one of its investors.

However, Elite went into administration shortly after the case called in Scotland’s highest civil court.

The administrators for the firm are pursuing the action at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

On Thursday, Elite’s advocate David Thomson KC told Lord Braid that he and fellow advocates were fully prepared.

Lord Braid then allowed the case to proceed.

He said: “The case will proceed to Tuesday when we will kick off.”

The case being brought by Elite arises from a separate legal dispute involving Sports Direct, which was then owned by Mike Ashley.

Lawyer for Ashley’s firm went to the High Court in London seeking an injunction to stop the deal between Elite and Rangers from going ahead.

The deal, which was signed in October 2018, was supposed to allow Hummel to supply Rangers with kits and to sell replicas to fans.

However, Judge Lionel Persey QC found that the deal with Hummel, to be a three-year contract worth £10m, was undertaken without giving Sports Direct a chance to match it.

Judge Persey ordered that Rangers couldn’t “wear any Official Rangers Technical Products designed by, supplied by, gifted by or manufactured by Elite or Hummel, or bearing the Hummel brand”.

Castore is the official technical kit partner of a number of leading teams and athletes including Rangers, McLaren Racing, Newcastle United, England Cricket, US Open Champion Matt Fitzpatrick and Andy Murray.

The brand sells into more than 90 countries globally and was valued as being worth £750m in September 2022.

The court has previously heard how Rangers signed a deal with Castore in May 2020 and that this deal breached the terms of the Hummel one. The agreement was reported to be worth £20m and covered five-seasons.

Mr Thomson told the court that this new deal caused Elite to sustain losses which it needed to be compensated for.

Rangers are contesting the action.

The case is expected to take eight days. It will begin on Tuesday.