Mike Ashley says he was responsible for covert surveillance footage that contributed to the exit of former JD Sports chair Peter Cowgill. Ashley, the founder of Sports Direct, acknowledged that people working for him arranged the filming in 2021. The video shows Cowgill meeting Barry Bown, the boss of Footasylum. At the time, JD Sports was in the process of acquiring Footasylum, and the two companies were not allowed to exchange commercially sensitive information as part of the acquisition. The reporting says the footage was recorded without Cowgill’s knowledge and later played a role in raising concerns over the propriety of interactions between the parties during the deal period. Both outlets describe Cowgill’s secret meeting in a car and the contemporaneous acquisition activity as central elements of the dispute. The accounts focus on Ashley’s admission of involvement in commissioning the recording, while outlining the transactional context in which the meeting occurred and why the information-sharing rules were relevant.