RANGERS will today begin their search for a kit supplier for next season following the renegotiation of their retail deal with Sports Direct.

The Ibrox board struck a new merchandise arrangement with Mike Ashley earlier this year and current manufacturers Puma had until Thursday to express an interest in providing strips and other merchandise beyond the summer.

Gers fans had boycotted the Megastore and Sports Direct outlets before the drawn-out legal battle with Ashley was finally resolved.

And chairman King hopes Rangers can now maximise a range of off-field revenue streams to boost the books in the coming years.

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He said: “The arrangements we have with Sports Direct means we can’t go to the market yet and within a certain timeframe. What we are doing at the moment, is putting together the appropriate plans as to what the offering is we want to take to the market at that point in time.

“So just now it is pretty much preparation, whereas the situation with the kit is a little different. Puma are obliged to give us more information – today (Thursday), in fact – as to whether they want to extend that, and they have already done that.

“So, from [Friday], we will be actively entering negotiations on a kit provider whether that be Puma or someone else.

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“We haven’t taken full advantage as it hasn’t been open to us, and they are still not currently open. But if you look at going forward, the Sports Direct deal was so narrow and so restrictive, that the revenue streams were very restrictive.

“What we are doing now is looking at other areas, and there are commercial opportunities that we haven’t exploited which we are looking at just now, and we think can be very significant going forward. A lot of that is around social media and different products other than the replica kits.

“We are finding the trend globally, not just in football but in basketball, baseball etc. that there is a decline generally in the sale of replica kits, so it’s not a market we can continue to rely on for our growth.”