Female staff at Sports Direct earn 6.3 per cent less than men according to its median gender pay gap figures, making it lower than the national average of 17.4 per cent.
However, the gender pay gap is significantly worse when it comes to bonus payments.
On the median measure, bonuses pocketed by male employees were 45.7 per cent higher than those given to women.
On a mean basis, the gender pay gap in average hourly pay was 8.4 per cent, and 41.4 per cent for bonuses alone.
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Sports Direct said it was working to align roles to ensure there were transparent structures in place.
“Sports Direct places a significant emphasis on equality and fairness when it comes to earnings across the group,” a spokesman said.
The retail company, which employs 29,000 staff, had unveiled its gender pay gap report hours before last night’s 11.59pm deadline that was set by the government.
Businesses with more than 250 employees must publish annual figures onto a government website, as well as their own.
The report must detail mean and median gender pay gaps, the proportion of men and women receiving a bonus, and the proportion of men and women in each quartile of the company’s pay structure.
Companies that miss the deadline could face legal action including court orders and fines, but only after being given more than a month’s grace period.
So far 78 per cent of companies who have submitted their data have a gender pay gap, with Boux Avenue’s 75.7 per cent gender pay gap identified as the retailer with the worst.
The lingerie chain said all of the staff in its lower three pay quartiles are female, and in the highest pay range 91 per cent of employees are women and nine per cent are men.
“Due to the intimate nature of our products, we predominantly attract female colleagues to our stores and head office which has a direct impact on our statistics,” Boux Avenue said in its report.
“The part-time working patterns within the stores are particularly appealing to female colleagues and these roles are paid on an hourly basis, whereas the small proportion of male employees are in salaried roles.”
Meanwhile, eight per cent of companies who submitted their reports who have gender pay gap and and 14 per cent who have one in favour of women.
The mean UK gender pay gap is 17.4 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2017, and the retail average is 16.4 per cent.
Gender pay gap is different to equal pay, which deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs.
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