“He’s the supreme leader. He’s in charge of what many regard as a rogue institution. His inner circle is packed with family members and toadies. He routinely flouts the norms of good behaviour and sticks two fingers up at his critics. He’s a relative lightweight, but has run circles around his much more powerful enemies.

“Apart from that, and a common rotundity, there is no similarity between Mike Ashley and Kim Jong-un. Mr Ashley has no nuclear missiles and doesn’t go around having people assassinated.

“But in corporate terms, the Sports Direct International founder and chief executive seems nevertheless to have been just as successful as the North Korean supreme leader…” wrote one Patrick Hosking in an opinion piece in The Times (UK)

Credit: Guardian

Ashley complained to press regulator Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) about the article. While IPSO sided with him one of the complaints, they didn’t find anything wrong about the comparison to Kim Jong Un, but considered that it was a matter of comment and interpretation.