The challenges confronting Mike Ashley took a turn for the worse on Thursday as his Sports Direct International Plc (LON:SPD) retail outfit reported a disappointing year.
Sports Direct blamed tough second-half trading for an 8.4% year-on-year fall in underlying pre-tax profit to £275.2mln, despite a 2.5% rise in revenue to £2.9bn.
Revenue in its core sports retail business increased by 0.6% but like-for-like stores gross contribution decreased by 0.8%.
The company also said the poor showing meant it had not hit the first underlying earnings target set by the 2015 long-term share-based staff incentive scheme and is based on the achievement of four consecutive full-year targets.
Chief executive Dave Forsey said: "The group has delivered a disappointing full-year financial performance, impacted primarily by a tough trading environment in the second half across our sports retail businesses."
Of the group's failure to hit the share scheme target, he added: "This is very disappointing as the scheme is a significant part of our high performance and reward culture, and we are working to replace this arrangement with a new incentive scheme to continue to reward our people for their commitment and performance."
The news is the latest blow to hit Newcastle United owner Ashley, whose team was relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2015/16 season.
Sports Direct itself is now in the FTSE250, having fallen out of the top flight in the Footsie's quarterly review.
And Ashley faced questions from MPs on a parliamentary select committee about Sports Direct's employment practices, including its use of controversial zero-hours contracts.
Ashley told the politicians that workers at its Derbyshire warehouse were paid below the minimum wage and its policy of fining staff for being late was unacceptable, the BBC reported at the time.
HMRC is investigating the firm over the minimum wage issue and an internal company investigation had uncovered issues which he had now "hopefully addressed", he said.
However, investors reacted positively to the result, presumably because it was not as bad as they expected. Shares rose 25.6p, or 9.2%, to 304.5p.