New SPFL sponsor

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

15 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

Surely a few other clubs will have a local car dealer as a sponsor of some sort, does that mean they can also not comply with the cinch sponsorship requirements?

I just started going through the commercial section of each club's website and every club I've looked at so far except Dundee United has a car dealership listed as a sponsor.

[Archie McSquackle]

Including Rangers?

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Hubris. Then. Now. Forever.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

12 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:

Including Rangers?

I was doing them alphabetically and got as far as Livi. I expect to see multiple articles on the Rangers website promoting their partnership with Parks of Hamilton.

[AJF]

1 minute ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

I was doing them alphabetically and got as far as Livi. I expect to see multiple articles on the Rangers website promoting their partnership with Parks of Hamilton.

I checked yesterday and can see no mention of Parks on our list of partners.

[Ya Bezzer!]

Rangers exceptionalism strikes again.

Take their share, dish it out between the other clubs, give them a big fine for being twats and tell if they want to play somewhere else they are welcome to scuttle all the way there.

Rangers fans, instead of being their usual incredulous selves, should be asking why their chairman is putting another business he has ahead of Rangers FC.

I mean Neil Doncaster is a complete dumpling and I'd love for him to be catapulted into the ocean and I'd have the incompetent SPFL raised to the ground with incendiaries but this is not the issue to do so over.

Montrose and Dumbarton should say no to a record deal because Douglas Park has his fingers in various pies.  f**k off.

Even if there is anything in the legal mumbo jumbo Rangers have put out they were totally out of order to make a deal like that in the first place that would deny an over riding SPFL sponsorship deal for all the other member clubs.  

Rangers need a sound whipping and told to go stand in the corner.  Honestly, this is a club that absolutely revels in being hateable.

[AJF]

1 minute ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Rangers exceptionalism strikes again.

Take their share, dish it out between the other clubs, give them a big fine for being twats and tell if they want to play somewhere else they are welcome to scuttle all the way there.

Rangers fans, instead of being their usual incredulous selves, should be asking why their chairman is putting another business he has ahead of Rangers FC.

I mean Neil Doncaster is a complete dumpling and I'd love for him to be catapulted into the ocean and I'd have the incompetent SPFL raised to the ground with incendiaries but this is not the issue to do so over.

Montrose and Dumbarton should say no to a record deal because Douglas Park has his fingers in various pies.  f**k off.

Even if there is anything in the legal mumbo jumbo Rangers have put out they were totally out of order to make a deal like that in the first place that would deny an over riding SPFL sponsorship deal for all the other member clubs.  

Rangers need a sound whipping and told to go stand in the corner.  Honestly, this is a club that absolutely revels in being hateable.

I completely appreciate why this looks bad on the club, but if I could frame it in a different way and ask a question: if the SPFL had failed to secure a league sponsor this season (as they failed to do for last season), would any commercial deal Rangers entered into be considered in a negative light whatsoever as it is now? Surely it would just be viewed as an instance of the club acting in it's best interests?

[Moomintroll]

19 minutes ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

I just started going through the commercial section of each club's website and every club I've looked at so far except Dundee United has a car dealership listed as a sponsor.

I expect they will have a multi material assembly with motion facilitated by utilisation of an internal combustion engine provided by means of a currency exchange within agreed parameters by a specialist agent in the relevant discipline instead.

[101]

1 hour ago, Ric said:

I don't think the media realise just how fucking insulting it is for your current players to be asked about another team, or worse on another game such as the OF derby

You're spot on but Adams made his comments on "Plz Soccer" which can be hardly considered the media it's incredibly tin pot with virtually no insightful coverage.

[101]

46 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

Surely a few other clubs will have a local car dealer as a sponsor of some sort, does that mean they can also not comply with the cinch sponsorship requirements?

We have Macklin Motors as a fairly major sponsor, they are on the stock exchange so I assume they are bigger than Parks 

[capt_oats]

**** being ****. Points deduction please. Either that or just boot the c***s out the league.

Happy with either outcome but the latter is probably preferable.

[paranoid android]

13 minutes ago, AJF said:

I completely appreciate why this looks bad on the club, but if I could frame it in a different way and ask a question: if the SPFL had failed to secure a league sponsor this season (as they failed to do for last season), 

The solution is simple: kick rangers oot the league and sack doncaster.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

16 minutes ago, AJF said:

I completely appreciate why this looks bad on the club, but if I could frame it in a different way and ask a question: if the SPFL had failed to secure a league sponsor this season (as they failed to do for last season), would any commercial deal Rangers entered into be considered in a negative light whatsoever as it is now? Surely it would just be viewed as an instance of the club acting in it's best interests?

[Dons_1988]

@AJF continuing his admirable(sort of) but ultimately useless crusade to convince people rangers aren’t a rabble of insufferable c***s. 

[Aim Here]

20 minutes ago, AJF said:

I completely appreciate why this looks bad on the club, but if I could frame it in a different way and ask a question: if the SPFL had failed to secure a league sponsor this season (as they failed to do for last season), would any commercial deal Rangers entered into be considered in a negative light whatsoever as it is now? Surely it would just be viewed as an instance of the club acting in it's best interests?

The issue is that Rangers have apparently signed two more or less incompatible contracts (and while there is some sort of resolution built-in, it seems to be likely to f**k over the other 41 teams). If Rangers hadn't signed either of them, there would never be a problem.

Now maybe it was reasonable for Rangers to sign whatever contract precludes them from fulfilling their obligations to the SPFL and it's league sponsor, but it's pretty hard to think of some scenario where Rangers would enter into such a deal in good faith, given the known circumstances.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Aim Here

[AJF]

3 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

@AJF continuing his admirable(sort of) but ultimately useless crusade to convince people rangers aren’t a rabble of insufferable c***s. 

Haha, I like to call it adding balance or playing devils advocate. I’m fully aware this may well be a case of Rangers acting up, but it also may not be

[AJF]

1 minute ago, Aim Here said:

The issue is that Rangers have apparently signed two more or less incompatible contracts (and while there is some sort of resolution built-in, it seems to be likely to f**k over the other 41 teams). If Rangers hadn't signed either of them, there would never be a problem.

From what Rangers are saying though, is that the contract they agreed with the yet unknown company was agreed prior to the Cinch deal the SPFL signed up to. Rangers have also said they made the SPFL aware of the conflict so I don’t think it can be portrayed as Rangers signing up to 2 incompatible contracts at all.

[Clown Job]

2 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

The issue is that Rangers have apparently signed two more or less incompatible contracts (and while there is some sort of resolution built-in, it seems to be likely to f**k over the other 41 teams). If Rangers hadn't signed either of them, there would never be a problem.

Now maybe it was reasonable for Rangers to sign whatever contract precludes them from fulfilling their obligations to the SPFL and it's league sponsor, but it's pretty hard to think of some scenario where Rangers would enter into such a deal in good faith, given the known circumstances.

If they realised this “loophole” existed in the first place, you’d like to think as a member club they would have pointed this out, tried to get it resolved

Not kept it quite to use it to their own advantage while screwing over the rest of the SPFL

[Aim Here]

14 minutes ago, AJF said:

From what Rangers are saying though, is that the contract they agreed with the yet unknown company was agreed prior to the Cinch deal the SPFL signed up to. Rangers have also said they made the SPFL aware of the conflict so I don’t think it can be portrayed as Rangers signing up to 2 incompatible contracts at all.

Right - but can you think of any normal contract that Rangers would sign in the usual course of it's business, given what we know about it's sponsors, that would preclude the league sponsor appearing at Ibrox?

The obvious thought would be a competing used car company demanding no used-car company competitors to be advertised, but Rangers don't seem to have such a sponsor, and in prior years, competing gambling companies have coexisted as the league sponsor and emblazoned across the chests of the major teams, including Rangers. Douglas Park wanting to stiff a competitor is even more obvious, but that falls into the 'bad faith' category. The sleeve sponsor - Tomket Tyres - seem to be okay sharing space with used car companies - they're on the back of SK Dynamo's shirt, while Autodraft is on the front.

Short of coming up with a normal-looking contractual term that would have this effect, then whatever deal made Rangers sponsorships incompatible with the current league sponsor looks more like a deliberate boobytrap designed to undermine the SPFL.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Aim Here

[AJF]

14 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

Right - but can you think of any normal contract that Rangers would sign in the usual course of it's business, given what we know about it's sponsors, that would preclude the league sponsor appearing at Ibrox?

The obvious thought would be a competing used car company demanding no used-car company competitors to be advertised, but Rangers don't seem to have such a sponsor, and in prior years, competing gambling companies have coexisted as the league sponsor and emblazoned across the chests of the major teams, including Rangers. Douglas Park wanting to stiff a competitor is even more obvious, but that falls into the 'bad faith' category...

I honestly don't know, and nobody else other than Rangers and the SPFL seem to know either.

My best guess at what has went on is that Rangers have signed a commercial deal with someone at a time there was no SPFL League Sponsor and the terms of that deal has stipulated some form of exclusivity (be that shirt sponsors, advertising at Ibrox or whatever).

The SPFL have then notified clubs of the discussions with Cinch, at which point Rangers have written to the SPFL informing them that due to the existing contract, they will be unable to provide Cinch with some of the rights associated with the sponsorship which Rangers believe is allowable based on Rule I7.

So, my personal thoughts are that Rangers have tried to look after themselves during a period where we've had no league sponsorship bringing in any money. You can argue that any deal they signed up to promising exclusivity is acting in bad faith, however there was no guarantee of league sponsorship and the onus should've been on the SPFL to inform Cinch of this during negotiations as far as I can tell. At that point, they may have been able to adjust the sponsorship amount to withdraw the value owed to Rangers given that they legally couldn't fulfil the sponsorship obligations.

If this is indeed what has happened, Rangers have acted within the SPFL's own rules. But again I will say this is just what I think may have happened based on what has been said by the SPFL and Rangers thus far. I'd have no problem with any Cinch money earmarked for us being withdrawn for the period that this exclusivity deal runs with whatever other company it is.

Edited August 5, 2021 by AJF