Four years have passed since the current administration of the Malta Football Association took over the reins of local football. In these four years, the local game has seen a lot of changes, most of which have brought a new lease of life to everyone concerned with the running of the game, but especially the clubs. The latter are now experiencing better financial results, even if they are still far away from receiving acceptable returns from the gate-money accruing from the domestic matches. This is, however, mainly due to the fact that attendances have not yet reached acceptable standards with most of the matches attracting just a few hundred people to the local stadiums. We have seen, among others, great improvements at the venues themselves, especially at the Hamrun, Gozo and Ta’ Qali national stadiums. Improvements have also been made to the Hibernians Stadium, where works still have to be completed. Other changes were made at administrative levels especially in the financial sector where a solid platform is being worked upon to consolidate what has done during the past four years. I fully agree with what the president,

Norman Darmanin Demajo, said in his closing speech at last Tuesday’s annual general meeting of the association, that the MFA cannot continue relying mainly on the income ‘guaranteed’ by FIFA, UEFA and the TV rights for international games. The proposal for a partnership to be launched with private enterprise is a very good idea, but I still have to be convinced whether it will be feasible for a place like Malta. It is not bad to see the MFA making good (full) use of the land within its footprint at Ta’ Qali. Yet, I believe certain proposals should be given a thorough study before being implemented. For example, after the failure to attract more people to hire the Ta’ Qali Stadium VIP boxes at the Millennium Stand (most of them, if not all, are closed during most of the matches), I cannot see much success for the introduction of season tickets and match- day hospitality, considering the local levels of football, even if there are several domestic matches which are worth watching. To make changes is not bad at all. On the contrary, it means that one is giv- ing a new lease of life to something. Even if it has to be an experiment, there is nothing wrong to give it a try. And I also hope that I am proved wrong in this regard.

Despite the successes of the association, there are other sectors which need to be addressed seriously. One such sector which definitely needs improvement, in my opinion, is the national team. Even here, a lot has been done in an effort to acquire more respect with good results and performances in the UEFA and FIFA competitive matches. Yet, we must admit we are still far away from reaching acceptable levels, even if we manage to obtain a good result on rare occasions, such as was the case in the 1-0 away win against Armenia last year. I am aware that the MFA administra- tion and its coaches do their utmost to see local football levels improving.

And we must also consider the fact that the selection of players for the national team is becoming more difficult seeing that just a few players are emerging from the junior levels with a solid potential to join the national team squad. This is where the emphasis has to be laid from now on. We have to see that our coaches ‘find’ youngsters and ‘develop’ them into good footballers. How I yearn to see players like John Buttigieg, Carmel Busuttil, Ray Vella and Michael Mifsud emerging from among our hundreds of youngsters in the club nurseries! In my opinion, this is the biggest challenge facing the Association in the next few years. One other change that was announced recently concerns the Premier League format. As we all might be aware by now, there will no longer be the Championship and Relegation Pools. We will now have all the 12 clubs playing three rounds, but with the division of points still existing after the second round. I can never agree – as the MFA president rightly said – to the division of points before the third round. But that was the clubs’ opinion. After all, they take part in the competition, and they have every right to have it their own way. And we must all respect their opinion. But after seeing last season that the top clubs had to fight hard in most of their matches against the ‘so-called’ small clubs – we also witnessed some surprises - then I think it would have made sense to have a league over three rounds. All this shows that the MFA is working on a professional basis and as I have already had the occasion to comment in previous years, it has become the envy of all the other top associations such as the ASA and the Malta Basketball Association.