League of Legends star Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsson has announced he’s joined a new team, and that new Rekkles merch is not available to ship to the UK.
The Swedish ADC turned support player has been linked with a move to T1’s LCS Challengers academy team in Korea. Update: It’s been made official.
하나로 함께
— Martin (@RekklesLoL) December 11, 2023????????https://t.co/oCgeHN224K pic.twitter.com/NgWr7K9mW1
He said on socials: “I’ve signed with a team for the 2024 season and will be competing once again. I’ve dreamt of this for many years and to finally be at the doorstep is making my inner child very happy.
“2023 was probably the worst year of my career, but none of that matters now. I choose to look ahead and got some big plans to revamp myself. I’ve stayed down long enough, it’s about time I stand back up. There will always be sunshine after rain and I’m very grateful to those who stood by me during the storm. Thanks for believing when no one else did.”
Rekkles also spoke about offers on the Rekkles merch website around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, on things like sleeves, hoodies and T-shirts.
However, Rekkles fans based in the UK will not be able to order items into the UK from Rekkles.gg.
“This time shipping is international (-UK) so don’t hesitate if that was the case last time,” Rekkles confirmed.
Esports News UK commented a lighthearted tweet above, and was met with several replies blaming Brexit for this, and we also had a few insults our way, including someone labelling us ‘a f****** tori’.
The Rekkles merch website added: “We ship worldwide (excluding the UK and sanctioned countries). Select countries (BE, NL, LU, DE, FR, HR, CZ, HU, PL, SK, AT, DK, EE, IE, IT, PT, ES, LT, SE, LV & US) have free shipping for order values above 200 EUR. The customer is responsible for paying import taxes.
“Please note for international shipments the customer is responsible for paying import taxes through their shipper before receiving the goods. Rekkles.gg is in no way liable for import taxes. International customers should expect a surcharge before delivery.”
The news comes just over a month after Rekkles left Fnatic.
We reached out to the Rekkles merch website team to ask why items can’t be ordered to the UK and if they might be available here in the future, and have not yet received a response.
Rekkles merch not available in the UK highlights wider issues with shipping to the United Kingdom
In recent years, following brexit, it’s not been unusual to experience issues when ordering items online from overseas into the UK.
This may be due to different government import/export requirements, manufacturer restrictions, warranty issues, increased fees and other
There may be increased costs, rules and hassle for suppliers, and that’s why some may choose not to ship to the UK.
Even prior to brexit, UK customers may have had to pay duty tax on items ordered from the US, and this was previously the case with the Blizzard web store. Other esports fans have also complained about having to pay expensive duty fees to order merch from abroad.
Of course, there are ways around this, such as asking a friend in another country to order an item then mail it to you, or other alternative courier services for these sort of mail order websites that don’t ship to the UK, but this may of course come with added costs and time.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
