Ashley tight-lipped over Keegan saga at AGM

Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley today refused to answer questions about the future of the club as he faced just four shareholders at his company’s AGM.

The 43-year-old billionaire said he would only speak about Sports Direct, of which he owns 72%, at today’s 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 today's meeting.

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

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. It’s going to get a lot closer between the retailer, the brand and the consumer.”

Mr Ashley said that to do this, both Nike and Adidas had set up offices at Sports Direct’s headquarters, which is situated on an industrial estate just outside the village of Shirebrook, near Mansfield.

The brands were also able to buy window frontage at the sport chain’s stores.

Adidas currently has a deal to advertise its brand in the shop windows of all of Sports Direct’s stores.