The Rangers’ kit nightmare continues, lands them in trouble

There’s more news of investigation into the Rangers’ behaviour but this one isn’t about stray elbows, complaints about season ends or SPFL’s governance.

The Glasgow Live site covers the story and a Government web site carries the investigation announcement. It tells of the Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) investigating suspected anti-competitive behaviour in relation to the price at which Rangers FC branded replica football kits were sold in the United Kingdom.

This runs separate to all the stories about the quality of the kits from Castore. It runs separate to all the stories about whether Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct have exclusivity over the sale of the new kit. And it is quite separate from Sports Direct and Ashley still pursuing a court settlement for damages and costs over breaches on previous agreements.

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So in effect it’s another new piece of formal investigation and possible action over the Ibrox club’s Hummel kits which has just kicked off and is likely to run for six months at least. Who’d have thought there’d be more that could go wrong for the club in terms of kit and agreements!

The Rangers and some previous retail partners face the investigation about whether there are pricing and sales issues over the Hummel kit. Along with the club we’ll see Hummel, plus retail partners JD Sports and Greaves being put under the CMA microscope.

The CMA reference that they believe there are reasonable grounds to suspect one or more breaches of competition law. The investigation will look further into this. And with their history of getting into trouble about their kits, it can’t be encouraging for any future deals.