A statement from Keith Rogers · May 2022 outcome
During and following the administration of Goals Soccer Centers Plc in 2019, allegations were made against former executives of the company — including myself — by the company, its administrators and unspecified sources. I want to address those allegations factually and briefly.
Goals Soccer Centers was a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange for fifteen years. Public companies of this kind operate under rigorous scrutiny — audited twice annually by independent auditors, overseen by regulatory bodies including the Financial Conduct Authority, and subject to strict stock exchange disclosure requirements. Had any regulatory authority considered that there were grounds to investigate the conduct of former executives, they had both the powers and the obligation to do so.
No such investigation was ever initiated against me.
The allegations that were made were tested through a formal civil court process. The civil proceedings were brought against two former executives — Keith Rogers, Chief Executive, and William Gow, Chief Financial Officer. The case was initially pursued by the administrators of Goals Soccer Centers before the rights to the claim were sold for £25,000 to Sports Direct UK.
Sports Direct is owned by Mike Ashley, one of the UK's wealthiest individuals and a billionaire, who was a significant shareholder in Goals at the time of its administration and is widely known as one of the UK's most determined litigants. The sale price itself is telling — the administrators, whose professional obligation was to maximise recovery for creditors, assessed the claim at £25,000. Sports Direct, with considerable legal and financial resources at its disposal, pursued the case regardless.
The proceedings were dismissed in their entirety by the Court of Session in Edinburgh — Scotland's highest civil court — in May 2022. Both defendants were granted a decree of absolvitor — the highest level of clearance available in Scottish civil law — with legal costs awarded in their favour. ICAS, the professional body regulating Scottish chartered accountants, saw no case to answer in respect of William Gow. He is currently serving as Finance Director of Tunnock's, one of Scotland's most respected family businesses.
The press reports from 2019 do not reflect the outcome of those proceedings.
I am proud of what was built at Goals Soccer Centers over 17 years — a business that grew from three centers to 46, delivered a five-times oversubscribed IPO on the London Stock Exchange, and attracted a formal £73.1m takeover offer from the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. Following administration, the business was acquired by Inflexion Private Equity, traded successfully through the Covid-19 pandemic, and was subsequently sold in 2022 at a reported value of approximately £200m — a testament to the strength of the underlying business built during my tenure.