Scottish Premiership side Rangers "could bank" up to £5M ($6.36M) from the sale of replica strips and official merchandise in the coming season after "successfully renegotiating" its "controversial retail deal with Sports Direct," according to Matthew Lindsay of the HERALD SCOTLAND. The club will also be able to "substantially increase" its income in the future as a result of "tens of thousands of supporters increasing the exposure" of sponsors and kit manufacturers. Those were the "confident predictions" from Peter Rohlmann, one of Europe's "foremost experts on football shirt sales," as Rangers fans "cleaned out the shelves in official stores and other affiliated outlets." Rohlmann, whose PR-Marketing firm advises the FA, German FA (DFB) and German Football League (DFL) on "how to maximise their income from replica strips," has been monitoring the situation at the Glasgow club with "great interest." Rangers has been operating at a "substantial annual loss" as a result of its "stand-off with the firm owned by Mike Ashley." Followers of the club had been boycotting shirt sales in protest of the "prohibitive terms of the agreement." However, Club 1872, the biggest supporters' group and the fifth-largest shareholder in the Rangers Int'l Football Club, "called it off on Wednesday" after the club announced it had been able to replace the existing seven-year deal with a new 12-month contract on "far more favourable terms." Rohlmann said, "I am not surprised that leaving the bad contractual situation behind has meant that Rangers supporters are returning to the stores and marketplace in to order to buy Rangers products again. The reason is pretty simple -- their purchases are supporting their beloved club again and not a strange person or company" (HERALD SCOTLAND, 6/23).
