Five-a-side football operator Powerleague will open no new centres in the coming year as it focuses on paying down its debt.

Five-a-side football operator Powerleague will open no new centres in the coming year as it focuses on paying down its debt.

The Glasgow-based leisure company yesterday reported flat pre-tax profit of £5m for the year to June 28 despite a wider slowdown in con-sumer spending, while interest costs increased thanks to its purchase of five JJB Soccer Domes.

However, the company's shares shed gains made in early trading to close at 33p, a 0.5p fall on the day.

Among those who did buy shares were the company's chairman and chief executive, who pumped more than £500,000 into company stock.

Powerleague spent £24.4m on building and acquiring new centres in the last financial year to increase its outlets by nine to 44, with a further venue added after the financial year finished.

The biggest outlay was £17.5m in cash paid for JJB's five centres located in northern and central England.

Powerleague chief executive Sean Tracey said: "In this financial year we are not forecasting to open any further new sites.

"We are going to continue to build up the pipeline and that will leave us in a strong position to roll out sites in the following financial year."

He added that the com-pany, which has 44 centres across the UK, was going to focus on new purchases, especially the former JJB centres.

"We want to make sure we make the best of the capital we spend by growing sales and profit in this financial year, and paying down some debt seems a sensible road forward."

The company has debt of £38.4m, up from £18.5m a year ago, and is aiming to cut this to £35m by the end of the year.

Net interest expenses rose 52% to £1.7m over the year thanks to the extra borrowings and a sharp rise in the interbank rates to which its rates are tied as the credit crunch hits.

Finance director Sheena Beckwith said the company had just undertaken a review of its debt with banker HBOS, which supported executive chairman Claude Littner's management buy-out from 3i Group five years ago, to ensure the company was "comfortably" within its banking covenants.

The company has also agreed, since the year-end, an arrangement where its interest rate will be within the 5.36% to 6% range.

The company's revenue increased by 14% to £26.3m last year as pitch income, the core of the company's earnings, rose 2% on a like-for-like basis.

Tracey said it was "encouraging" that its core income stream, and the highest margin part of its busi- ness, remained stable in a consumer downturn.

He acknowledged that it was suffering from "something of a decline" in bar revenues, as consumers opted for a cheaper post-match drink at home, but said weekend events bookings had "remained strong".

He added: "We are con-fident pitch income is going to remain strong. The average cost per game is £5. We think it represents good value. It is not like having a gym membership on direct debit for £120 a month."

The company said trading since the end of June was in line with expectations.

Panmure Gordon analyst Dymphna D'Costa said the company had produced "good" full-year results with pre-tax profit ahead of forecasts by 13%.

However, D'Costa said she favoured fellow Scottish company Goals Soccer Centres, which last month reported a 4% increase in like-for-like sales.

She added: "While we expect Powerleague to deliver reasonable earnings growth, its main competitor, Goals, will deliver higher earnings growth, and is our preferred sector play."

Powerleague, which floated on the Alternative Investment Market in May 2005, announced a dividend of 1.1p per share.

Littner and Tracey each purchased an additional 840,000 shares in the firm yesterday, spending £268,800 each at 32p per share.

This took Littner's stake to 5.85% of the company, while Tracey now holds 4%.