Keith Rogers has spent his entire professional career building small-sided soccer businesses. He founded the sector in the UK in 1987 and operated at its leading edge for the following three decades — as founder, managing director and chief executive. He is now developing KIX Soccer Centers across the United States.
Keith Rogers grew up in Grangemouth, Scotland. At 17 he established a fleet of ice cream vans — working through university to fund his studies and developing an early instinct for operations and customer behaviour. He graduated from the University of Strathclyde in 1985 with a degree in Environmental Engineering, sold the business, and used the proceeds to purchase his first property.
In 1987 he was appointed to manage a single-site health and fitness club in Paisley. The fitness business was underperforming, but attached to it were four tennis courts used informally for five-a-side soccer. The opportunity was immediate and obvious.
Before the late 1980s, recreational soccer in the UK meant booking a multipurpose sports hall alongside basketball and badminton. There were no dedicated facilities, no organised leagues of substance, and no serious investment in the adult recreational game. That was the gap Keith Rogers identified in 1987 — and spent the next three decades filling.
In 1987 Keith Rogers converted four tennis courts at the Paisley site into purpose-built five-a-side soccer arenas — the first commercial facility of its kind in the United Kingdom. The center is still operating today.
The model was straightforward: invest in quality facilities, organise competitive leagues, and create an environment that would attract players who had stopped playing after leaving school. The response was immediate. Scottish & Newcastle Breweries came on board as an investor, and Bank of Scotland provided the financing for national expansion.
The business expanded from Paisley to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Hamilton, and then into England — Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle. Trading as Pitz Soccer, the company grew to 13 centers nationally with a strong pipeline of additional sites under development.
In 1999 the business was sold to 3i for £28 million. Rebranded as Powerleague, it continues to operate 43 centers across the UK today.
The four tennis courts in Paisley — the UK's first commercial five-a-side facility — are still there. That business is now Powerleague, operating 43 centers across the UK today.
In 2000 Keith Rogers completed a management buy-in of Goals Soccer Centers — a three-center family business based in Glasgow, backed by Dunedin Ventures. Over the following 17 years, Goals was built into the UK's leading small-sided soccer operator.
Significant investment in facility quality — including the early adoption of third-generation (3G) synthetic turf across all sites — transformed the playing experience and broadened the demographic of players the centers could attract.
By 2004 the business was ready to list. The IPO on the London Stock Exchange (AIM) was five-times oversubscribed and generated a 25% IRR for PE backer Dunedin Ventures.
Growth continued strongly. By 2012 Goals operated 43 centers in the UK and one in the USA, with revenues of £30.4m and more than 100,000 customers visiting its facilities each week. That year the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan — one of the world's largest institutional investors — proposed taking the company private in partnership with Keith Rogers, valuing the business at £73.1m. The board unanimously recommended acceptance. Shareholders rejected the offer in the belief the business was worth more.
In 2017 Goals established a joint venture with City Football Group — the owners of Manchester City FC, New York City FC and clubs on five continents — to develop Goals-branded facilities across the US and Canada.
During his tenure Keith Rogers also successfully challenged a significant HMRC VAT assessment at court — a ruling with material implications for the wider leisure industry, with the court finding that the company had in fact been under-claiming the VAT exemption to which it was entitled.
Keith Rogers left Goals in 2017 following a disagreement with the incoming chairman over strategic direction. He had built the business from three centers to 46 over 17 years.
Following administration in 2019, Goals Soccer Centers was acquired by Inflexion Private Equity. The business traded successfully through the Covid-19 pandemic and was sold in 2022 at a reported value of approximately £200m — a reflection of the operational infrastructure built during Keith Rogers' tenure.
Keith Rogers relocated to the United States in 2019 to develop KIX Soccer Centers — bringing next-generation small-sided soccer facilities to the American market, with an initial focus on California, Florida, Georgia and Texas.
The US small-sided soccer market today occupies the position the UK market held in 1987: large latent demand, an established participation base, and almost no dedicated infrastructure for the adult recreational game. KIX has progressed multiple sites to advanced lease negotiations with public bodies across the target states.
A high-profile US soccer icon has been confirmed as brand ambassador, with a formal announcement to follow. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted across the US, Canada and Mexico, represents the most significant catalyst the American soccer market has ever had.
The 5v5 US market opportunityI have spent 35 years building businesses in this sector. The US small-sided soccer market today is where the UK market was in 1987. The infrastructure gap is substantial, the demand is established, and the 2026 World Cup will accelerate everything.
Keith Rogers serves as a Director of Klipp-It Ltd, a UK-based construction products business developing innovative products for the UK construction industry.
Keith Rogers is featured in The Five-a-Side Bible, which charts the history of five-a-side soccer in the UK, available on Amazon. The book describes him as the person without whom the explosion of five-a-side in the UK might not have happened.