JD Sports boss lands £4.3m bonus despite chain claiming £61m furlough cash

THE boss of JD Sports got a £4.3million bonus despite his chain claiming £61million furlough cash.

Executive chairman Peter Cowgill, 68, pocketed the bumper payout last year on top of his basic package.

That took the multi-millionaire’s total pay to £5million.

JD Sports reportedly got £38million in business rates relief.

The sports fashion retailer was also granted £300million from the Bank of England’s liquidity programme but never used it.

Mr Cowgill’s bonus was branded inappropriate while shareholders were advised to vote against his re-election.

He has run the group, which had pre-tax profits of £324million last year, for 17 years.

JD Sports defended Mr Cowgill’s pay and said furlough cash ensured there were “not redundancies on a large scale”.

It added his bonus pot included £3m of "deferred" bonuses from 2019 for the firm's "historic outperformance".

But Luke Hildyard, of the High Pay Centre, said: “Furlough payments and business rates relief were not meant to maintain multimillion-pound payouts for vastly wealthy executives.”