Goals reports 'year of progress and change'

Goals Soccer Centres has reported a "year of progress and change" in 2011 as sales and operating profits both increased by 9 per cent compared with trading for the previous year.

Sales grew from £27.8m to £30.4m and operating profits increased from £10m to £10.9m over the 12-month period, while pre-tax profits climbed 21 per cent to £9.2m.

The five-a-side football facility operator added four UK sites to its estate in 2011 - at Hull, Sunderland, Liverpool South and Norwich - but it has now postponed additional launches in 2012.

Chester is the only new Goals site due to open this year, which is the group's first modular build venue and will cut capital expenditure to £1.5m and build time to 14 weeks per site.

Goals managing director Keith Rogers said: "We have added a further four centres to our estate and pioneered an innovative new modular build strategy that will not only reduce costs going forward but will also enable us to dramatically cut build time.

"Our key strategic focus for 2012 is on driving returns from our current estate, reducing net bank debt, while evaluating all aspects of our first new modular build in Chester."

Details: www.goalsplc.com