Late last year, this newspaper had reflected on the waterpolo season that had just ended and the changes that were being made on the administrative side of the game. We had pointed out that a review of the sport was needed to revive the game, which has come to survive only on the Sliema-Neptunes rivalry. Although this has its positive aspects, it also had a negative impact on the totality of the sport, as more and more clubs were losing interest or, at best, finding it hard to cope.
Sadly, we were proved correct. After the demise of Birżebbuġa and Valletta a few years ago, another club, Marsaxlokk, has called it quits and will not be taking part in any of the competitions this year. Efforts are being made to bring the Valletta club back to life, but they will have to start from scratch – and doing so using those players who were on Marsaxlokk’s books last season is not exactly the perfect beginning.
The ASA, under the new presidency of Joe Caruana Curran, now has come up with changes to the format for both the winter and summer leagues. The main modifications are the introduction of play-offs at the end of the round-robin leagues, the changes to the preliminary round of the summer league and the insertion of the knock-out midway through the summer competition. There are other alterations which, at first glance, will complicate matters and will make it hard for fans to keep up with.
On the whole, the aim is to generate more interest in the game. The idea that summer league matches should be played later in the evening than fans are accustomed to should however be put aside – both because the floodlighting system at the Tal-Qroqq pool is not up to standard, and also because a later time will not bring about more people. Ask the MFA for more details.
When this newspaper, not so long ago, hinted that we run the risk that only Neptunes and Sliema “survive”, we were not far from the truth. This is because, other than the financial aspects that we mentioned earlier, we must point out that the format changes that were announced will only serve to enhance the Sliema-Neptunes rivalry at the expense of the rest.
Until last season, these two giants of waterpolo met up to six or seven times per season. As from this year, the possibility exists that they will be playing against each other up to a maximum 15 times if, as expected, they will be the two main challengers for the four cups at stake. The quality of the games, with the reform in the preliminary round of the summer league, will increase, but 15 games between the same two sides are rather too many.