Goals Soccer Centres will kick-start expansion in the United States in earnest after establishing a pipeline of about a dozen sites in and around Los Angeles.
The five-a-side football operator, which opened its first centre in the Californian city in 2010, said that it had entered detailed negotiations on five sites and had agreed terms on two. It was hopeful that its second centre would open this year.
Keith Rogers, the managing director, said that its first centre in the city had performed well and was showing strong growth after five years. “It’s now one of our top-performing centres on both a total sales and like-for-like basis,” he said.
He admitted that the regulatory framework for acquiring and developing new sites was more complicated than in Britain, partly because of the need to cater for the threat of earthquakes. However, the work it had put in was starting to pay off and, with two million players in California, the biggest football market in America, Mr Rogers was confident the group could build on its “first-mover advantage”.
Goals, which has 45 centres in Britain, netted a 10 per cent increase in underlying pre-tax profits before exceptionals to £10.6 million in the year to the end of December, from sales up 3 per cent to £34.7 million.
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A final dividend of 1.325p makes a total for the year of 2p, up 8 per cent.
Shares in Goals fell by 7p to 226½p.