JD Sports will pay ‘handsomely’ for the rights to exclusively sell Newcastle United’s new Adidas shirts.
That is according to a Competitions Appeal Tribunal (CAT) panel after Sports Direct failed in a bid to get Newcastle to retail next season’s kits in the shops of former Magpies owner Mike Ashley. Sir Marcus Smith, the CAT president, and fellow panellists Carole Begent and Dr William Bishop unanimously refused Sports Direct’s application for ‘interim injunctive relief’.
The panel ruled that there was ‘no reasonable or legitimate expectation on the part of Sports Direct of continuity of supply’ and said that to suggest there was an ‘obligation’ for Newcastle and Adidas to ensure that supply to Sports Direct was maintained represented a ‘significant fetter on competition not an enhancement of it’.
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“The new owners of Newcastle United FC are endeavouring to restructure the NUFC replica kit business of the club,” an excerpt from the written judgement read. “That is no small undertaking, and it requires considerable expenditure of time, effort and money. Thus, existing relationships (for instance with Castore) need to be terminated, and new relationships (for instance with JD Sports and Adidas) forged.
“The interim injunction, if granted, would throw a substantial spanner in these delicate and complex works, and the fact that we cannot be more specific is, we consider, an indication not that the damage to the club is unreal, but that it is very real but unquantifiable.
“To give just one example, we have noted that the new arrangements accord to JD Sports a measure of exclusivity in the UK market. JD Sports pay handsomely for this right, and the granting of the injunction will materially deprive JD Sports of its exclusivity.
“JD Sports has already indicated that it would regard the club’s supply of NUFC replica kit to Sports Direct as a breach of Newcastle United FC’s contract with JD Sports. Whether that is in fact the case is open to question: certainly, Newcastle United FC would be able to contend that supply to Sports Direct would be pursuant to mandatory order of this court – and whether that supply could constitute a breach of contract might (as we say) very well be open to question.
“But the damage to relations between the club and its suppliers would, we consider, be very real, and impossible to assess. This is a big and important business for Newcastle United FC. The revenues anticipated from this venture are – over time – likely to be considerable. Newcastle United FC are right to be concerned at the significant disruption to their business that would occur were the 22 injunction to be granted, even on more limited terms than Sports Direct presently seek.”
This echoed a point previously made by Thomas de la Mare, who represented Newcastle at the initial hearing. The KC told the tribunal that this ‘seven-figure delta’ from JD Sports was revenue that ‘you think you’ve got in the bank that you might then have to act on a basis of being at risk’ as a result of this ‘potential claim’.
“If there is a substantial seven-figure delta as there is just flowing from the JD Sports contract and if you’re a club with a turnover of Newcastle’s in the order of £250m in the latest published accounts, that is highly material to decisions you make about which players you recruit, what expenditure you take and how you keep an eye on Financial Fair Play,” the KC said.
Sports Direct will still be able to take the matter to court, however. In fact, the written judgement noted that ‘this refusal makes a speedy trial more, and not less, urgent’.
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