Rangers and Sports Direct

This is a touchy topic. We’ve had a lot of questions from regulars asking why we’ve not covered the Sports Direct shambles; why we’ve ‘whitewashed’ the whole thing.

And it’s true, we’ve avoided it like the plague because frankly we’ve been enjoying the football side of things far too much of late to wish to descend back into the murky politics which blighted both the club and this site for six+ years.

It was an ugly time for us and not one we got any pleasure from. We’d rather moan about a missed shot from Alfredo Morelos or yet more awful defending from Big Tav – because that’s the kind of whining football fans are supposed to do, not complaining constantly about boardroom piffle, court cases and revenue issues.

Plus we also have the huge season opener coming up in two days and distractions from that are not welcome in all honesty – we have a trip to Aberdeen which could well define our whole season, just like the previous two openers (Hamilton in 2016 then Motherwell last year) did.

So forgive us if we don’t really want to get mired down in the whole thing while important on-field issues are more crucial.

If you want ‘some sort of opinion’, then yes, the board has made a pig’s ear of the Sports Direct contract, and yes, it may well have lost us £3M plus given Ashley the complete upper hand.

It’s diabolical that our fans cannot buy the shirt, again, and that we’re back in this toxic place of it being taboo now to obtain one because doing so is going through Cashley’s stores and into his  pocket. Probably.

Honestly the latest episode of the fiasco leaves us cold. We’re fed up with it. More and more Rangers are about the football and the club now, so when one of these little chapters appears we want to run away from it.

We know we have a responsibility to you, our readers, and our club, but quite honestly this is a complete mess that the board (and previous boards) caused and other than moaning, we’re not quite sure what power we or any other fan group, forum, organisation or anything else has to prevent it.

The last we heard is it was settled out of court, naturally at more cost to the club – although we have no idea how accurate that is.

If you wanted an incisive and detailed analysis of the affair this isn’t the place to go.

We just want to support our team.