Ashley bans questions about United

Sep 11 2008 by Paul James, The Journal

UNDER-FIRE Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley yesterday refused to answer questions about the club’s future at his company’s annual meeting.

The 43-year-old billionaire said he would only speak about Sports Direct, of which he owns 72%, at the meeting near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where the company has its headquarters.

Asked by reporters if he would comment about Kevin Keegan’s recent departure from Newcastle United, Mr Ashley said: “This meeting is about sportsdirect.com – I am not going to make any other comment.”

Mr Ashley, dressed in a blue and white striped shirt and jeans, looked relaxed and tanned as he sat silently throughout the meeting, attended by just four shareholders.

When asked again outside the meeting whether he would comment on the situation at Newcastle, he said he would only speak about Sports Direct.

Two burly minders then stepped in to usher outside reporters who continued to ask questions about the future of the club.

Mr Ashley, who arrived in a black Rolls-Royce with blacked-out windows, also refused to comment on pledges by fans to boycott his Sports World stores.

When asked about the current trading conditions his company was experiencing, he said he expected the recession to last another 18 months. Mr Ashley said: “We have found in previous recessions that when we retract, when we look inside ourselves, we seem to come out a little bit stronger than when we came in.

“If you are going to be in sports retailing 10 years from now, you must have extremely close relationships with Nike and Adidas because between them they own the vast proportion of the industry.

“For us it’s about talking with these major brands, that’s where the growth areas will be.”

Mr Ashley said that sales of England’s home replica shirt had been poor after the team failed to qualify for the European Championships, although sales of Premiership kits remained healthy.

He has a large enough shareholding to push through any resolution among shareholders, although the one to approve directors’ pay received more than double the number of votes against it than any of the other resolutions. It received 508,616,408 in its favour, and there were 622,269 against it.