It has been confirmed Rangers settled Sports Direct out of court for £6M, £2M shy of the £8M we were informed of but still in a similar ballpark.
This announcement among the accounts, rather quietly shuffled underneath all the headlines, does actually deserve a bit more credit – the board spent modestly north of £5M getting rid of Mike Ashley once and for all permanently, bringing conclusively to an end any lingering embers of power the SD tycoon had over Rangers.
Now, many would argue those on the boardroom themselves are barely any better than Ashley these days, but that would be an unfair argument. Ashley was a deeply toxic force both at Ibrox and for Newcastle, and now both clubs are completely free of him.
Sadly, he is trying to get his claws into other clubs, a number of Championship sides being potential victims if he can seize control – indeed, Coventry actually rejected him despite his having enough money. They just didn’t want him in control.
And Rangers, to the tune of £6M, paid what really was a small price to get completely shot of Ashley, even if SD still violate certain laws happily by selling Rangers’ shirts and leaking the design. How they are managing to do that we’re not entirely sure, but there you go.
End of the day though, Ashley’s grip on Rangers is gone, he has no more sway on anything to do with Rangers, and indeed never even made any comment on the club during the decade his mitts were all over us.
This was definitely one of the good things the board did, regardless of who actually did it – the relationship was completely severed and the club and fans were finally free of Sports Direct and Ashley.
£6M very well spent if you ask us.
Nice business? The £6M isn’t a pay-off to get rid of Ashley, it was the compensation due to Sports Direct for breach of contract by signing a deal with Hummel when SB had first refusal. Why makes you think Ashley is no longer on the scene? I going you may be in for a surprise. Perhaps something you might want to ask at the AGM
As Hugh mentions , this will be brought up at the AGM without a doubt as will various shortfalls/mistakes call them what you will. Ashley and his horrible soldiers Lambas etc were always placed along with Green to fully exploit all the weakness in Rangets at that sad time and had it not been for Mr’s King Park Taylor etc it could have been worse . The Hummel faux pa’s was poor management I’m sure we could have handled that better. Let’s see if we can get the words “Done with Ashley Rat” when we ask the question .
Couldn’t agree more. A lot of people don’t understand how bad it was with Ashley in control. We were losing our club. Ibrox was falling apart. Murray Park was a dump.. the three bears saved our club and to now be rid of Ashley and his parasite cronies and all the money being spent on ibrox and Murray Park and to be financially stable we have got to give credit to Douglas Park for all the time and money he has put in to our club..p.s I notices on the accounts that celtic directors take a wage but rangers directors don’t take a penny. I am a happy rangers supporter today
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