Sports Direct calls shareholder vote to reimburse Mike Ashley's brother

Sports Direct has set itself up for another shareholder battle after recommending boss Mike Ashley's big brother is "reimbursed" £11m for IT services.

Sports Direct said on Friday that a probe it commissioned had found that John Ashley missed out on a series of benefits that were not made available to him for fear they would be seen as inappropriate - given his family ties to the company's billionaire boss - since the company's 2007 flotation.

A report produced by layers RPC and accountants Smith & Williamson concluded that if Ashley Snr "had been treated equally with other senior executives who helped to build the company, he would, in fact, have received additional remuneration payments totalling c.£11m, which he was denied because of concerns at the time about public relations".

Independent shareholders will vote at a new general meeting on 13 December over a resolution to pay John Ashley around £11m for services provided during his employment by the company, while the board, including Mike Ashley, will abstain from the vote, although they are supportive of the resolution.

Mike Ashley says in the statement: "I intend to voluntarily abstain from the vote on whether or not John should receive the money that he would otherwise have earned at Sports Direct if he were not my brother. I fully expect that independent shareholders will vote against this proposal due to the passage of time involved, although in my opinion, technically the money is owed and therefore should be paid.”

He added: "It's important for me to say that if John had owed one pound to Sports Direct, I would have ensured any sum was repaid in full. I hope shareholders will therefore be reassured that everything is in order and that any concerns are laid to rest.

"I always put the interests of Sports Direct ahead of my own."

Independent analyst Nick Bubb was somewhat sceptical. "With everyone’s eyes on Black Friday, today is a good day to bury bad news (from a PR point of view), so we probably should not be surprised to see that Sports Direct has stirred up controversy again," he said.

"The idea is that he has been denied his rightful earnings since 2007 simply because of the bad PR the company thought that it would get."