Shareholder wipe-out as Goals Soccer Centres admits to 'improper behaviour'

Goals Soccer Centres, the Scottish five-a-side football operator that is tackling a major accounting blunder, is to cancel its share listing after admitting to “improper behaviour” within the business.

The Scottish firm is one of the biggest operators of five-a-side facilities. Picture: Andrew Worthington

In a trading update, the East Kilbribe-based group said that following “ongoing detailed investigatory work” into accounting policies and practices it had become “very recently evident that there has been improper behaviour within the company”.

It noted that this had involved “a number of individuals for a period since at least 2010”. As a consequence, there is now “material uncertainty” in relation to the historic financial statements issued by the firm, which is one of the biggest players of its kind, running about 50 sites in the UK and the US.

Goals added: “A key criteria for the resumption of trading in the ordinary shares of the company is the completion and publication by 30 September of the full-year 2018 audited financial statements.

“The directors do not now believe this timeframe for the audit is achievable and, coupled with the findings above, no longer expect the ordinary shares in the company to resume trading.

“The listing of the company’s ordinary shares on Aim [the Alternative Investment Market] is therefore expected to cease and cancellation will be effective from 30 September.”

In March, Goals revealed that it had uncovered substantial VAT accounting errors estimated at some £12 million. It said its board had ­concluded that the VAT misdeclaration issues dated back several years, although the final value of the error is still being established.

In its latest update, the group added: “Discussions with the debt providers remain positive and they have confirmed to the company that the existing debt facilities will remain in place post the initial 31 July 2019 review date, albeit that one of its covenant thresholds has been exceeded.”

It said year-to-date sales across the 45 sites in the UK on a gross like-for-like basis were up 11.5 per cent. The company’s US gross like-for-like sales are 14.5 per cent higher.

In late June, heated words were exchanged at Goals’ annual meeting as Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct, which holds a stake in the business, continued to put pressure on the company but failed to push directors off the board.

Goals non-executive director Christopher Mills clashed with a representative of Sports Direct when asked whether board members would take a lie detector test over the accounting error.