JJB Sports claims Mike Ashley

In an escalating row between the two sportswear retailers, Ashley’s team of lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, were yesterday understood to be working flat-out on a denial of JJB Sports’s statement to the stock exchange regarding a £1.5m loan from Ashley to Jones.

JJB has argued that the agreement “was initiated before Sir David joined the company as a non-executive director, has not given and does not give rise to any conflict of interest.”

But Ashley is set to argue that Chris Ronnie, then chief executive of JJB, asked him for a £1.5m loan on behalf of Jones three days after he joined the Board.

A source close to Ashley said: “He is obviously going to vent when comments made about him are inaccurate.”

But, yesterday, a spokesperson for JJB Sports, said: “The company has come out with the facts, and any suggestions to the contrary are false.”