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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Ross Pilcher

Rangers get SPFL court battle 'permission' from SFA as cinch dispute apology and costs offer fail to materialise

The Scottish FA have granted Rangers permission to take the SPFL to court.

The Ibrox club are after an apology from the league governing body. The two have been at loggerheads for some time over the cinch sponsorship dispute. The Light Blues successfully argued that the agreement they had with former chairman Douglas Parks’s company - Park’s of Hamilton - meant they were unable to use cinch branding around the stadium, on their kits or on TV backdrop boards during live matches or interview footage.

As a result, the contract between cinch and the SPFL was revised to exclude Rangers, meaning the Glasgow club had no obligation to follow the cinch advertising requirements that other clubs were bound by. League chief Neil Doncaster said at the time: “Under the terms of the revised cinch contract, Rangers are no longer required to participate by providing the sponsorship inventory that they have so far not provided, whilst, crucially, the overall income to Scottish football is expected to remain materially unchanged over the original five-year term of the sponsorship.”

Now the Herald reports that at the time of the ratification of the amended contract, the SPFL were due to apologise to Rangers and consider paying the legal expenses incurred by the club. However, neither have been forthcoming, they claim, and now the Govan outfit have been given permission to take Doncast and Co. to court, in what is an unprecedented move by the national association.

However, should a statement offering a formal apology and an offer to pay costs is made, then Rangers are willing to accept and move on. The case has already cost the SPFL hundreds of thousands and could end up eating into a large chunk of the £1.5million of revenue generated by the deal with cinch.

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