Articles

Puma & Sports Direct Set To Sell Sevco Kit In Defiance Of Dave King

|
Image for Puma & Sports Direct Set To Sell Sevco Kit In Defiance Of Dave King

Last month this site revealed that Puma and other Sevco sponsors were ready to take the club to court in order to claw back cash owed to them by the club after it refused to give Ashley and Sports Direct the go-ahead to sell replica shirts.

Today it looks as if Sports Direct and Puma are forcing a joint counter-move, with Ashley’s sports retailer and the manufacturer pushing sales in direct violation of the club’s instructions.

A number of high street chains have been primed to start selling the jerseys as of Thursday, with Sevco set to net only a tiny fraction of the proceeds for each one, according to The Daily Record at least.

In this, however, they have form. They’ve been pretty close to the mark where this story has been concerned, spin notwithstanding. Keith Jackson deserves credit for breaking this one, and I have no trouble giving it to him. He can look forward to a lot of abuse for doing it, although hopefully not from the sort of gutter rats who dragged his family into it last week.

This story has been running a while now, of course.

It becomes clearer each day, and with each passing development here, that Dave King’s decision to ban replica shirt sales by Sports Direct was, and remains, an act of utter lunacy. That he announced this news to his tame Scottish PR firm, and through them the media, before he had told a single one of the club’s commercial partners was one of the most reckless and dangerous decisions ever taken by an Ibrox board, and it put them in a situation so adverse that any number of observers, myself included, were puzzled as to what the end game must look like.

It was never destined to end well, that’s for sure.

Now the retail giant at the centre of this action – and the kit manufacturing company who were caught up in it – are ready to defy King and his board by selling the stuff anyway. Interestingly, Sports Direct and Puma appear to have come to some kind of mutual agreement here, which means the forces arrayed against King and the club are more powerful than ever.

Sports Direct has the sole legal right to sell these jerseys. A move by Puma to get them into other retail outlets is only possible with the support of Ashley’s company and his explicit approval beforehand. If he and Puma have decided on a joint action that’s not good news for those in the Blue Room. They face not only a situation where the club will get only the bare minimum rewards, but any action they take will be headed off by two mighty corporations, with legal running costs almost certain to dwarf any meagre financial upside.

The full implications of that are pretty breath-taking, and the public humiliation – which is the least worst option for King and his board – should they swallow this will be enormous. Our media was very quick to trumpet King’s move as something born of genius instead of madness, as something motivated by strength instead of an act of desperation, but it’s impossible to imagine even their Level 5 brethren being able to spin this as a victory when Sports Direct itself will be openly flogging the shirts and claiming the win as their own.

A lot of the disasters which have befallen Ibrox boards over the past couple of years were made right here in Sunny Scotland. This one carries the rubber stamp “Made in South Africa.” It is product of ego and arrogance, of one man’s inability to play with a straight bat or to accept that there are bigger, smarter, people in the world than him, and with deeper pockets too.

Ashley is one of them. Sports Direct’s corporate value rests at a little over £3 billion. Puma, although dwarfed by the two giants of sportswear Adidas and Nike, still managed to turnover little more than £3 billion in sales last year.

These are not companies I’d want going head to head with me in court.

There’s no way out for King here except humiliating retreat. Yet that’s the least palatable option to a man who’s already gambled the future on his club on an ability to outlast a genuine billionaire with almost unlimited resources. I don’t see common sense breaking out now.

Sevco is being led to disaster here.

I hope there’s enough ice cream and jelly to cope with the inevitable sales surge.

You can now follow The CelticBlog on Twitter at @The_Celtic_Blog

Share this article