THE man who transformed Rangers FC's retail operation into the second-largest in British football has left the club.
Nick Peel has "resigned as a director with immediate effect to pursue other business interests . . . following recent restructuring of the club's business operations, " Rangers said in a statement.
A spokesman declined to give any more details.
Under Peel's stewardship Rangers bought out Nike to go its own way with kit and leisurewear, which raked in millions of pounds and made the club second only to Manchester United in retail.
Peel's departure follows the elevation of 36-year-old former PR and marketing man Martin Bain, a longstanding colleague of Peel, to the post of chief executive last month.
Speaking three years ago, Rangers executive chairman David Murray described Bain and Peel as "two competent boys"who would combine their marketing and retail expertise to ensure Rangers would have the second-biggest retail market of any football club in the UK by 2004. This goal was achieved.
Peel was instrumental in most of Rangers' most significant recent commercial developments, including a landmark kit sponsorship deal announced earlier this month.
He declared himself "delighted"with that four-year deal with Umbro, one of the world's top three football brands, which he said would bring - pounds6.5m a year into the Ibrox coffers.
The contract, for an undisclosed seven-figure sum, will continue to see Rangers manufacture and distribute its own replica kit.
Peel also piloted negotiations on the proposed creation of a casino development on the doorstep of Ibrox Park.
His last public act as a Rangers director appears to have come last Saturday, when he handed out complimentary tickets for an Old Firm game at a charity event in Edinburgh, held to mark St Patrick's Day.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article