As the owner of Newcastle United Football Club, Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley is used to being shouted at for 90 minutes by angry people dissatisfied with his stewardship. Happily, he will face no such ordeal at next week’s Sports Direct annual meeting, thanks to a stroke of genius on his part. He isn’t going to show up.

It’s rather unusual for a company to hold an AGM without the presence of its chief executive, not to mention its largest shareholder. But then Ashley, who, a court heard, once vomited into a fireplace during a drinking session with business associates, is no ordinary chief executive.

In the retail billionaire’s absence, investors are expected to air grievances about the company’s rather idiosyncratic governance style. The list of shareholder gripes is extensive. Among them is the company’s habit of dishing out huge piles of cash to Ashley’s family members.

Michael Murray, engaged to Ashley’s daughter Anna, was handed a £5m deal as “head of elevation”, in charge of revamping stores. The payout was revealed on the same day as Sports Direct investors were treated to an £85m writedown linked to the company’s investment in Debenhams, a decision that has proved to be another source of irritation.

The familial largesse doesn’t stop there. Independent shareholders had to step in last year to block a proposed £11m payout to Ashley’s brother. The relationship had previously been heavily criticised by shareholders and corporate governance experts after it emerged that a company owned by John Ashley was being paid to deliver online orders outside the UK. The arrangement with Barlin Delivery, which was unwound last year, had not been disclosed in Sports Direct’s annual report.

More ethically minded investors may want to question the company on its progress in addressing working conditions, exposed in a Guardian investigation in 2015. Shareholder advisory groups have urged investors to register their discontent when they vote on company resolutions at the AGM. One of them, Pirc, recommends a vote against chairman Keith Hellawell, questioning whether he is merely Ashley’s placeman.

He owns 61% of Sports Direct, giving him a voting bloc that trumps anyone else’s

“It is important for the public shareholders to be confident about the board’s ability to represent their best interests and not those of the controlling shareholder,” said Pirc. “This is no longer the case with the existing chairman and an oppose vote is therefore recommended.”

It added that Hellawell “must be held accountable for some appalling working practices at both the Sports Direct shops and warehouses, either for not knowing about them, or for turning a blind eye to such practices”.

ISS and Glass Lewis call for votes against both Ashley and Hellawell, the latter organisation citing “poor governance” under the dynamic duo. ISS questions the company’s “apparent unwillingness” to address the worries of independent shareholders. But while some institutional investors will follow this advice and vote accordingly, Ashley can simply brush them aside like an alpha silverback gorilla swatting flies.

He owns 61% of Sports Direct, giving him a voting bloc that trumps anyone else’s, and there is nothing in the UK’s feather-light City regulations to stop him doing as he pleases.

Besides, he has other fish to fry. After buying department store chain House of Fraser out of administration earlier this year, the retail tycoon promised to transform the ailing brand into the “Harrods of the high street”. Now that is a task that makes Newcastle United reaching the Champions League look like a doddle.