MFA president Dr Joe Mifsud is not only well known in local football circles. He is considered as a great Maltese ambassador in Europe for the past 10 years, having served on the governing body of European football as a member of the Executive Committee.
Dr Mifsud is also a well known person in European football circles. During the past 10 years he has built a reputation for himself, Maltese football and for the country, working for UEFA as a member of the top committee of Europe’s highest football institution.
It was a great honour for Dr Mifsud and tiny Malta when he was elected for the first time in 1994. Since then, he has been elected four times consecutively, even though in the last election a few days ago, he was elected for a two-year period as he is replacing Henri Roemer of Luxembourg who has been given the post of personal consultant to president Lennart Johansson.
Dr Mifsud had also occupied a post in the FIFA Executive Committee when he was elected to the world body’s main institution in 1998. That was another feather in the cap for Dr Mifsud even though his contribution lasted just two years.
He said: “It was great to have served at FIFA levels as well. It was a great experience, even though till today I am also a member on one of its committees, that is, the Players Status Committee.”
During his uninterrupted stint at UEFA Executive Committee Level, Dr Mifsud has also occupied very important posts. “In 1994, when I was elected the first time, I was named as chairman of the Legal Committee. Two years later, apart from being retained for the same post, I was also named as chairman of the Referees’ Committee. That lasted till the year 2000, when UEFA decided that members of the Executive Committee should no longer occupy such top posts. Instead we were assigned to be more active in ‘political’ affairs.
“Four sub groups were set up to take stock of the situation and also to formulate policies on UEFA strategies. I form part of one of them which is entrusted to keep regular contact with national associations. I also represent UEFA in the Security and Stadia Committee, at least until July. Then the Executive Committee members elected last week will be assigned new roles which they will occupy till July 2006.”
Dr Mifsud says that UEFA, or rather its Executive Committee, has changed its role in the past few years. “Nowadays there is no more supervision work for executive committee members. We are just delegates at European Championship tournaments, Champions League and UEFA Cup matches and other matches involving national teams. At a finals tournament, like that in Portugal in summer, we will be working in various venues, just to see that everything is moving on smoothly. Today’s UEFA role is more political and this came about after a report from the Boston Consultants a few years ago who had proposed – and it was approved – that UEFA should be modernised.”
Dr Mifsud added that UEFA had expanded considerably over the past few years. “I remember that when I was a member of the Appeals Board in 1984, UEFA only had about 23 employees. Today, it employs 200. Five years ago, a new headquarters was inaugurated in Nyon, Switzerland. Today it is already being considered small. Of course, the European Body has become much more commercial. And above all, there are now 52 affiliated countries instead of the 32 which were members till 1990.
“The income UEFA generates is fantastic. Its revenue comes mainly from the Champions League and the European Championship. Revenue from the Champions League is distributed among the participating clubs while that forthcoming from the European Championship is distributed among the national associations,” said the MFA president.
Dr Mifsud went on: “UEFA is one big family nowadays where every nation has its rights and receives compensation. In the years preceding 1992 no nation received any money. In those days, clubs were only refunded the money they used to spend on travelling to play competitive matches organised by UEFA. The situation has changed drastically now as they all get a fair share according to the progress they make in each and every competition they take part in.”
Asked whether he thought the small clubs’ share was small – they get around Lm23,000 for their normal participation in a qualifying round and more if they make further progress – Dr Mifsud promptly said that UEFA had to take into consideration everything. “I think the amounts are distributed fairly and squarely. It is only fair that those who make more progress get much and much more, even because their expenses are much and much higher than those of the small clubs,” he said.
I asked Dr Mifsud what the UEFA Cup will look like next season after the approval to give it a new format. “There will be a preliminary round and the group matches, like the Champions League, but the concept behind the new look is different. In fact, there will be no central marketing. The clubs will have their own TV rights even in the Group phase. The idea of the group phase is being done to try and make the competition more attractive.
“Income will almost certainly not exceed that of the Champions League which, alone, recorded one billion Swiss francs this season (around Lm300 million). This amount showed a slight decrease over past seasons but this came about due to the smaller number of matches after the elimination of the second group phase,” he said.
Apart from distributing such amounts to the clubs and the associations, UEFA also has its own assistance programmes. “We also have reached an agreement with the EU on players – rules on transfers , international transfers and transfer fees, etc, etc. UEFA also has its own doping control set-up,” he added.
Asked about UEFA’s reaction to the G14 (Europe’s top clubs) proposal that they should be compensated when their players are called to play in the national teams, Dr Mifsud said the problem seemed to be mainly with FIFA, not with UEFA. “The European Body already compensates the associations and the clubs from the revenue generated through the Champions League and the European Championship. So far, there is no obligation from anyone to make any payment in compensation, not even to insure players on such occasions,” he said.
Premier League
Asked about local football and the club’s ‘No’ to a league with an eight-team format, Dr Mifsud said: “We only tried to have a system whereby our local standard, in my opinion, would have improved. The clubs did not agree with the idea because of the relegation and promotion issue, especially those in the lower divisions. They thought that their promotion chances would be reduced considerably.
“But we have always been speaking about the need to have more competitive matches in our top league, at least. Their argument went completely against what we were talking about. Now their future is more uncertain because they risk losing a number of sponsorships.
“After all, in Malta we have a unique situation not found anywhere on the continent. We have a league where matches are played mostly in one venue provided by the association. The other venues are also handed to the association and it organises the matches, provides the referees and everything else, and this is just because we are a small country and most of the clubs do not have their own stadium. Of course, the stadiums need maintenance and to organise the number of matches played in Malta every year, we spend thousands and thousands of liri. The clubs know about it, yet it seems they cannot accept it as a reality.”
Club licensing
I also asked Dr Mifsud about the club licensing situation at present. Here, he made it clear that he was happy that all the seven Maltese clubs that had applied had all been granted the licence. “They all were approved by the British Standard Institute. Now they will undergo another check by UEFA itself later this month. But there should be no problem. We have been helping the clubs in this regard over the past four years and therefore we were well prepared to face the problem.
“To get a licence is not easy as some of Europe’s top clubs are finding, especially because they did not make the necessary preparations. UEFA takes into consideration several criteria before issuing a licence and these include legal, infrastructural, financial, administrative and sporting criteria, apart from obliging clubs to have their own youth sector.
National team
Dr Mifsud was also asked about the situation of the national team. Since he took over as MFA president, there have been six coaches – Pippo Psaila, Pietro Ghedin, Milorad Kosanovic, Josif Ilic, Sigi Held and now Horst Heese (a second term).
He added: “We lack players of a certain quality here. This is no secret because we are small and we are aware that we have our limitations. But we are also aware that we have some really talented players. If groomed well, I am sure they can make the grade. But they all have to be well prepared, mentally and physically, to withstand the pressure one can expect in order to be able to make it to the top grade. Of course, we can never make any comparisons with those playing abroad where coaches can select players from among millions practising the sport, and not just a few hundreds, or scores, to be exact.
“It is a pity that we had a few players playing abroad and they have decided to come back. To play at the top level, any player must be tough, apart from having a certain amount of intelligence. Every player must understand that to make a career out of football one has to make a lot of sacrifices as well.
“We had passed through a period where no youngsters were coming out from the youth sector. A lot of work has been done in recent years and I am hoping that we will soon be reaping the desired fruit in the next few years. I meet with members of the Technical Staff every month and we discuss the problems facing them and the players quite frequently,” he added.
Dr Mifsud said the MFA had decided not to play any more international friendlies in the month of April. “We had been criticised in the past because at this time of the year, the players are more involved with the clubs in a most crucial part of the league. And we have decided not to stage any friendlies in future in April.”
Corruption
Dr Mifsud also spoke about corruption in local football and said: “I must state that there are exaggerations in this regard. I do believe there might be something going on, but not on the levels as those mentioned week in, week out. It is the poor mentality of some people, according to the surveys carried out, that comes out on top. They think that 70 per cent of our institutions – not just football – are corrupt on this island. I cannot accept such a statement.
“On this island, if a team loses a match, it is always because of corruption and this is what I call a poor mentality. I reiterate I certainly do not exclude there are certain cases. In the past we also had received reports which we investigated and took the necessary action. A player had also been banned for life on one occasion. We have given an amnesty only on two occasions – in 1964 on the occasion of Malta’s Independence, and in 2000 on the occasion of the MFA’s Centenary celebrations.”
He added: “A few weeks ago, the presidents of the clubs had indicated they would be signing a declaration in this regard (against corruption in local football). But I am disappointed because they have not yet signed it and I sincerely do not know any reason for such a delay on their part.”
Future of football
Asked whether there was any future for Maltese football on these islands, Dr Mifsud said: “Why not? Look around the country. Almost every club (44) now has its own nursery and, at least, children can find a place in their own location, where to go and practise football under watchful eyes. Let us not forget that all the coaches in those nurseries are qualified and we have over 500 of them nowadays.
“Yet we need cooperation from everyone to be able to develop the youngsters’ talents. One serious problem we encounter is that we often have to cancel participation in tournaments because these clash with exams. For example, a few days ago we would have taken an Under 17 team to a tournament abroad, but in view of the players undergoing their exams, we had to cancel our participation. Others, such as Cyprus took part.
“I think their players also have exams at some time or other of the year. I wish to know what they do so that we can emulate them, although I am not saying that our youngsters should discard their studies in favour of a footballing career.”
MFA staff
Dr Mifsud paid tribute to the staff of the MFA which has also increased to over 50 in recent years between full and part timers. He said they work hard as the administration of the association has been given a very professional look.
“We do not just organise competitions for men, women and the FUTSAL (five-a-side). We take care of the venues (Ta’ Qali, Centenary Stadium and the training grounds), registration of players, contracts and discipline which has to be regular and frequent, as well as decide on disputes between players and clubs.
“We also have the refereeing sector – without it no competitions can be held anywhere – which is very important. We have to increase their number every year. We have to train them so as to be able to give a service both locally and abroad.
“We also have six national teams to take care of – seniors, Under 21, Under 19, Under 17, the women and the Amateurs. And there is also the Doping programme which simply cannot be ignored either.
“All this requires a certain amount of work which, quite unfortunately, goes on unnoticed sometimes. Without the help of all those concerned, football cannot go on on these islands,” he said.
The road to the MFA Presidency
Dr Joe Mifsud started on the road to the MFA presidency when he was still 17 years old.
He recalled: “ I was then secretary of Qrendi FC and we applied to join the MFA. As a player I had started earlier on an amateur basis with Qrendi Sparrows in the Inter Amateur Soccer Competition which was already in existence then. Matches used to be played at Floriana those days. I also used to play football at the University.
“Later I was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Third Division Clubs. That was in the early 1970s. In 1982, I became the president of that committee and also of the Division II/III Standing Committee. For several years, I was also the president of Qrendi FC.
“My first big step was in 1969 when I was elected as an MFA Council Member representing the Third Division. In those days there were only three members representing the Third Division clubs. Later on, these were gradually increased and nowadays all the Second and Third Division clubs are represented on the MFA Council.
“In 1982, I was elected vice-president of the Malta Football Association and 10 years later, that is in 1992, I became president,” he said.
Apart from his stints at UEFA and FIFA, Dr Mifsud was also responsible for two of the MFA’s biggest projects in recent years – the Millennium Stand and the Centenary Stadium.