Sports Direct will vote for the board of Goals PLC to be removed after it rejected calls for corporate investigator Kroll to unravel the company's accounting crisis.
East Kilbride-based Goals this week rejected the request by Mike Ashley's retail group, its biggest shareholder with more than 18%.
Trading in shares of the football centres operator is suspended while an apparent £12 million VAT underpayment is investigated. Goals says forensic accountants are examining its books.
But Sports Direct claimed the advisers helping Goals are not independent and are in fact a division of its auditors.
Sport Direct said: "Sports Direct's request for the appointment of Kroll to do an independent and cradle to grave report was not a request for the Board to appoint Kroll, it was a request for the Board to allow the investigation to take place, with all of the costs incurred in connection with the Kroll report being borne by Sports Direct. Sports Direct would also propose to make the Kroll report available to all shareholders who would also have access to Kroll to ask them any questions."
It added: "It is the Company's position that they are 100% sure that the matters under investigation were carried out by one individual. The Board of Goals taking this position leads Sports Direct to believe it is essential that Kroll's appointment is made immediately. Sports Direct now calls upon the Board of the Company to agree to Kroll's appointment. A substantial amount of the information that will be required by Kroll will already be available, and this investigation should start without any further delays.
"In light of the perceived lack of transparency by the Goals Board and the resulting loss of confidence Sports Direct has in the Board as a whole, Sports Direct will be voting against the reappointment of the whole of the Company's Board at its AGM on 28 June 2019."
