Can the ‘knight rider’ shine light on Sports Direct?

After a very long hunt for a chairman Sports Direct has finally found its man. However, many in the sports and fashion world will not have come across Keith Hellawell.

Hellawell was formerly chief constable of West Yorkshire police and also advised the government on its drugs policy. But it is his experience handling price fixing allegations at pharmaceutical firm Goldshield Group that is most notable about the appointment.

Sports Direct continues to be under the glare of investigations from both the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over alleged price fixing and the Office of Fair Trading for the acquisition of certain stores from JJB.

The appointment has been read by some that the normally unflappable Sports Direct is taking these investigations extremely seriously, and although a chairman had been called to be appointed by the City for corporate governance reasons, this is testament to the business’ bigger problem.

As an outsider it will be interesting to see how Hellawell gets on in the incestuous world of sports retailing. The sector does not always take kindly to outsiders – take exhibit one, JJB chairman Sir David Jones, as an example.

Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley and Hellawell have much in common though, neither strangers to controversy or clashes with business peers and both are very much “rags to riches” stories.

Hellawell left school at 15 and worked as a miner before joining the police aged 20 and working his way up to chief constable. He was dubbed “knight rider” as he always wore black clothes and drove around in a black Porsche. Ashley built up his empire from one shop to become a self-made billionaire and also has a penchant for fast cars.

Ashley has clashed with old adversary Dave Whelan in the past and shopped him to the OFT in 2000. He has also clashed with Sir David Jones who he claims he loaned money to before Jones joined the board of JJB.

Hellawell caused controversy by his seemingly “softer stance” on cannabis and clashed with some in the government over how to tackle the country’s drugs problems.

He is very much a no-nonsense man and is likely to have the strength of character to impress what needs to be done to move forward and tackle the various investigations which could hang over the retailers for months or even years.

Sports Direct is unlikely to suddenly adhere to the many requests by the City to be more open but Hellawell may want to polish the reputation of Ashley’s OFT controversy-dogged empire and help what is after all a very successful retail business.