Sports Direct calls ASA “out of touch” after RRP ad ban

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a Sports Direct product listing over a struck-through £45 price, and Sports Direct has hit back by calling the regulator’s whole approach out of touch.

The ruling against Frasers Group Trading Ltd, published on 2 September, concerns a page on sportsdirect.com selling a Puma Women’s Zipped Baselayer Top. Seen on 10 February, the listing showed the top from £17.00 beside “RRP £45.00” and the line “UP TO 50% OFF”. Which? complained that the reference price bore little relation to what shoppers actually paid.

Frasers supplied written confirmation from Puma that £45 had always been the recommended price, and that Puma itself had sold the top at £45 between February 2023 and April 2024. The ASA was not persuaded. It found competing retailers listing the same product at £17 and £23, and concluded that £45 was not the price at which the top was generally sold across the market. The ad breached CAP Code rules 3.1 on misleading advertising, 3.17 on prices and 3.39 on price comparisons, and must not appear again in that form.

Sports Direct is contesting it. The retailer told Retail Gazette the ASA’s standard is not the valid legal test for whether an RRP misleads, that gathering pricing data from “across the market” is unworkable for traders, and that the consumer evidence behind the approach is around eight years old. It points to the High Court’s Emma Sleep judgment as the better authority.

The row is bigger than one baselayer. Reference pricing runs through most of UK retail advertising, and the regulator’s position is that a manufacturer’s RRP proves nothing on its own. Until a court says otherwise, that is the bar any struck-through price is judged against, as our guide to the UK advertising rules sets out.