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Dave Whelan


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He could be wanting to help oust Ashley, due to his unfinished business over his finished business (JJB), after he told him that "There's a club in the north and you're not part of it, son!" and it backfired spectacularly.

Jesus wept, do people actually think we are that important?

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Hearing that a few of the Sunday papers down in Wigan are saying he is ready to sell up and invest in us....Thoughts??? Always felt he had an eye for a manager bringing in the likes of Martinez to Wigan. Also openly talks to the press everyday, might be what we need

Hearing from where?

I'm hearing .....................

Post it, or it's bullshit.

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Just want to put a stop on any wasted posts- dave whelan his club is wigan

He has only wigan at heart -

Sarver has real intention and a sporting team in place & the dollars

sadly for us the real fans have no say in him - we are at the mercy of ********

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From 5 1/2 years ago...

Tables turned as Mike Ashley bankrolls JJB chairman
Row between sportswear tycoons reveals dog-eat-dog nature of a lucrative sector

Zoe Wood

Wednesday 8 July 2009 01.57 BST

The-tangled-world-of-spor-001.jpg

"There is a club in the north, son, and you're not part of it," was the immortal line uttered by Dave Whelan, the JJB Sports founder, to Sports Direct's Mike Ashley, who at the time was the young pretender to the UK's sportswear crown.

The club in question was a tight-knit group of Manchester businessmen who had dominated what was a thriving sector during the 1990s and early part of this century, as sportswear became big business thanks to its adoption by the masses as casualwear.

By 2000, Ashley was the upstart southerner snapping at their heels. His revenge was to report their plan to fix the price of England and Manchester United shirts to the Office of Fair Trading, prompting an investigation that landed the protagonists with multimillion-pound fines.

Mike Ashley
Sport Direct's Mike Ashley. Photograph: Michael Mayhew/Sportsphoto/Allstar
Fast forward a decade, and Ashley is now the kingpin, calling shots that reverberate through the sector. This week it emerged that Ashley had bankrolled the JJB executive chairman, Sir David Jones, dishing out a £1.5m loan which the former Next supremo had used to finance Advanced Network Technologies (ANT), a private technology firm that his family controls.

The controversial arrangement raises fresh questions about the incestuous relationships and old enmities that have made the sector as gripping as a local derby, amid claims Ashley is trying to embarrass the retail grandee after he decided to stock less of Ashley's brands.

The "club in the north" referred to the so-called sportswear mafia that dominated the UK sportswear market. JJB was founded in Wigan, while David Makin and John Wardle founded JD Sports in Heywood, near Manchester. The now defunct Allsports was based in Stockport, while brands such as Umbro, Nike and Reebok also had bases there.

"These guys created a whole new type of fashion retailing," says one industry insider. "They used football terrace fashions, but also created new looks by mixing sports tops and jeans and creating demand for the latest trainers from Adidas and Nike. It was a real street culture thing."

Minor player

"Mike Ashley came from the south and didn't grow his business organically; he just bought out all the smaller independent chains and, at the time, Whelan regarded him as a minor player," he added.

The geographical reach of the club also extended north of the border, to Sir Tom Hunter, who has used the £300m he made selling Sports Division to JJB in 1998 to embark on his philanthropic career. At Sports Division, Hunter gave the disgraced former JJB chief executive Chris Ronnie his big break, inviting him to join the board a year before the sale.

Like characters in a novel by David Peace, author of The Damned Utd, the men behind Britain's biggest sportswear companies are hard-edged with rivalries and friendships that divide along team lines. Like a Boy's Own story, Whelan, Ashley, and Wardle and Makin have all used the fortunes made from selling replica football shirts to buy the real thing, investing in Wigan Athletic, Newcastle and Manchester City respectively.

In 2007 eyebrows were raised when Ronnie – a former new business director for Ashley – emerged from the shadows with £190m to buy out Whelan's remaining shares in JJB. The deal, bankrolled by the Icelandic investors Exista, was seen as a fresh start for the chain, which had seen profits wiped out with England's Euro 2008 hopes.

But there were suspicions that Ronnie, a failed professional squash player, was on a secret mission for his former paymaster. At the time of his appointment, Ronnie batted away analysts' concerns, saying: "Sportswear is a very friendly industry."

But if Ronnie was on a mission at JJB, it was a kamikaze one. His 18-month tenure brought the business to near collapse and culminated in suspension at Jones' hands in January, after it emerged that Exista's shares had been seized by Kaupthing's administrators.

There were more suggestions of foul play in March, when Ronnie popped up at a meeting between Ashley and Whelan, who by then was in the final stages of buying JJB's fitness chain. The sports tycoons met in Wrightington Hotel & Country Club in Wigan, where Whelan alleges Ashley encouraged him to let JJB go bust. "He said if I backed off from the deal, he'd guarantee I'd get the health clubs at half the price I'd agreed to pay," said Whelan.

If JJB failed, not only would thousands of jobs go, but suppliers would face substantial losses.

Top dog

"In my view Whelan and Ashley are two peas in a pod," continues the insider. "They are both overbearing and bullying and used to being top dog. They also hold grudges for years."

Jones was brought in as the man to clean up JJB and return it to financial health. But the revelations about his loan from Ashley have cast doubt on his integrity.

In an attempt to draw a line under the loan scandal, JJB issued a statement yesterday stating that the board and its advisers had known about the loan for several months but had decided it was a "private" matter. It said the loan was made before Jones joined as a non-executive director in October 2007 and insisted it did not "give rise to any conflict of interest".

Jones has now told the board he intends to repay the loan "as soon as possible". "The board considers the matter closed," the company added. But Jones's reputation as one of the UK's most respected corporate grandees has been dented.

There is still a club in the north and Jones is definitely not in it.

The rival and the loan
JJB Sports chairman Sir David Jones yesterday vowed to pay back a controversial £1.5m business loan "as soon as possible". The money, borrowed from business rival Mike Ashley, was used to prop up software firm Advance Network Technologies (ANT), a company 70% owned by the Jones family, in which his son Stuart is also involved.

The company, which offers services such as IT support, owed creditors about £4.4m at the end of 2007, according to Companies House.

JJB said yesterday the loan was agreed prior to Jones joining its board in October 2007 and that executive directors were informed of its existence and terms, including the option of Ashley converting his loan into shares, earlier this year. The board maintains the transaction was a "private" matter and as a result it did not need to tell the stockmarket. "The board considers the matter closed," it said in a statement.

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