Goals Soccer Centres faces delisting amid accounting crisis

Shares in Goals Soccer Centres, the football pitch operator at the centre of an unpaid tax dispute, are set to be delisted from the London Stock Exchange after the group conceded there had been "improper behaviour" in the preparation of its financial statements for a decade.

Goals, in which Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct holds a 19 per cent stake, has been embroiled in a crisis since it emerged in March that years of VAT misdeclarations had left it with an unpaid tax bill of about £12 million (€13 million), prompting the suspension of trading in its shares on London’s Aim exchange.

On Friday, the five-a-side pitch operator said an investigation into its historic accounting practices had pointed to improper behaviour involving a number of individuals dating back to at least 2010.

Audit timeframe

As a result, it has stopped work on its 2018 audit until it can obtain further details. This means it will probably not have its accounts ready by the deadline required for its shares to resume trading.

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“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 company said in a statement. The group now expects to be delisted on September 30th, at which point it will become a private company. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2019