One of the good things about Mike Ashley is, or used to be, that he was easy to understand. Whether attacking City fund managers as “a bunch of crybabies”, admitting he is “not Father Christmas” or telling the High Court that “I like to get drunk. I’m a power drinker,” no one could be in any doubt what he meant. Perhaps he was on the turps before signing off today’s statement to the stock market about Sports Direct’s decision to walk away from a bid for Goals Soccer Centres.
It is a mixture of legalese (“subject to the reservations”) and the sort of conspiracy theories men who sleep in parks shout at dog walkers.
Take a deep breath and try this: “Sports Direct considers the Goals board members it was dealing with to be intelligent, and anyone with any common sense could tell it could not be only the result of one person’s behaviour given the relative size and timeframe over which what would appear to be considerably more than “inappropriate actions” took place.” Come again? So he thinks Goals board members are dim, right? Or just disingenuous?
Ashley always gets cross when he wants to buy something and someone, somewhere, won’t let him. Which is slightly odd given that his track record is patchy, at best. You might think he’d be grateful for the intervention, for being saved from himself. Perhaps what Sports Direct really needs is a period away from the stock market. As 63% shareholder Ashley could arrange this if he wished.
Then his angry mutterings, entertaining though they might be, would not have to be made in public. For those of us in the cheap seats, this would be a loss. Investors other than Ashley might be relieved.
