Kirill Micallef Stafrace is one of those sport persons who gets involved in almost everything. Though only 34 years old, he has not only played football, volleyball, squash and handball, but has also occupied, and still is, occupying top posts in some clubs and the Malta Olympic Committee. At present, he is the Director of Marketing of the MOC. Above all, he is probably the top sports medicine specialist on the island. Here he tells his story to Henry Brincat
Date of birth: 1 December 1970
Education: Stella Maris Primary School, Balzan, St Aloysius College, New Lyceum, Msida, University of Malta (Doctor of Medicine and Surgery), University of London (MSc. Sports Medicine), Fellow of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine (Ireland), Master in Scienza dell’ Alimentazione applicata allo Sport (Italy). He is currently reading a doctorate in health at the University of Bath with his research focusing on obesity and exercise.
Employment: He has worked at Mt Carmel Psychiatric Hospital, at the Departments of Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Orthopaedics (to date) at St Luke’s Hospital. He has also been medical officer to Leyton Orient FC (England), head of the medical doctors (Malta team) at the Games for European Small States in Iceland, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Malta. He was also the medical doctor of the Maltese handball team at the Cyprus Challenge Cup in 1999, Small Nations Wrestling Tournaments (1999-2004), head doctor of the Maltese contingent at Sydney Olympics 2000, doctor at the Mediterranean Games in Tunis 2001 and Almeria, Spain, this year, Commonwealth Games, Manchester 2002, Sliema Wanderers (since 1997 to date) and chairman of the medical organising committee of the Games for European Small States in Malta 2003. He has also lectured on sports, exercise and rehabilitation sciences since 1996 at the University of Malta. He is also the Chairman of the Malta Olympic Committee’s Medical Commission since 1996. He also served the MOC as Director of Marketing in the executive board, receiving the largest number of votes among 12 candidates who contested the election. He is also editor of the monthly medical newsletter issued by the Malta Olympic Medical Commission that is distributed to all affiliated athletes. In October he was elected member of the Executive of the European Federation of Sports Medicine Associations.
Seminars/conferences: He has organised among others, three Olympic Solidarity National Sports Medicine seminars in Malta and attended numerous conferences including two at the University of Bath, England, a BASM conference in Aberdeen, Scotland, and an international weightlifting federation sports science conference in Olympia, Greece. He also attended other conferences in Lisbon, Paris, Rome, Oviedo, Bratislava, Arnhem, Belgium, Athens, Syracuse, Coventry, England, and Cyprus.
Sporting career: He was a player of Aloysians Volleyball Club and Aloysians Handball Club. Between 1991 and 1995, he was also a national team volleyball player and also played for the University of London team between 1995 and 1996. He also played football for the Burmarrad AFC amateur team in the MAFA competitions, took part in the Life Cycle event from Malta to Assisi in 2002 and from Paris to Madrid last year. He also completed the London Marathon in 1996 and took part in the Great North Run and the Malta Running Challenge in the same year and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro early this year.
Administrative career: He is the Director of Marketing of the Malta Olympic Committee. He was a past president of the Aloysians Handball Club. In the past, he was a local councillor for Attard, chairing the subcommittees on health and sports. He was also a member of the Malta Medical Students Association and a member of the organising committee of the national sports contests between 1998 and 2000.
Family: Single
This interview does not highlight the successes on the field of play as is normally done with sports people.
In actual fact, Kirill Micallef Stafrace was a very keen sportsman in his younger days and, apart from playing football for his class team at St Aloysius College, he also played volleyball and later handball.
“We lived in Attard and in those days, our place was surrounded by fields and children, including myself, used to play football freely. When I grew up, I took volleyball much more seriously. So much so that on some occasions, to play for Malta in the Small Nations Games, I also postponed my exams,” he said.
Going through his curriculum vitae, it is obvious that Micallef Stafrace lives a hectic life. And there is no doubt that he is not just a qualified person in his duties, but also dedicated and very much committed to his job(s).
He said: “Time management is very important these days. I find time for everything although I must admit that these days, I am finding it difficult to cope with all my activities. But it is important for anyone to carry on with one’s studies while remaining active socially and being involved in work and recreational activities.”
Apart from being a sports medicine expert and a medical doctor with some clubs and the MOC, he is also the marketing director of the latter committee. However, he says that since his election to that post, he has found out that sponsorship has become very difficult to obtain. “We cannot make comparisons with past years. Companies are not yet aware of what they can obtain through sports sponsorship. What is more worrying is that some do not even follow up a sponsorship properly, and they miss out on all the advantages that it offers,” he said.
Yet Micallef Stafrace says he has learnt a lot from this “new” experience. “I have now got involved in much more work than before: in fact, I never say no to a challenge, even if this appointment sees me occupied for many, many hours a week at the MOC,” he said.
It was the injuries he suffered while he was a player that led him to take up sport medicine. He said: “Although some form of setup existed, this was not run professionally. Thus after I graduated as a doctor I paid my own fees and I started studying in England until I obtained my degrees and qualifications. Later I was bestowed a great honour by the MOC when they named me chairman of their Medical Commission. They sent me to Italy for two months in 1996 where I studied “Nutrition for athletes”.
“I can now say that being a medical adviser of a club of sports, is a very exciting job. There is the element of competition involved and you would wish to have every player under your charge in top condition. I am involved in football and the Small Nations Games teams, but my real work in the private sector concentrates also on the prevention and management of health problems. It involves the treatment of obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, asthma, hypertension, heart conditions and many other health problems. Medical doctors prescribe pills to their patients. I prescribe exercise to my patients – mostly athletes. It is unfortunate in this day and age that people do not yet realise how important it is to get involved in some form of exercise. It is vital that the authorities also realise that our population needs a lot more exercise to avoid being considered as one of the most obese in the world,” he said.
Micallef Stafrace’s major moments of satisfaction arrived first when he got his Fellowship in Sports and Exercise Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and last month, and secondly when he was elected a member of the Executive Committee of the European Federation of Sports Medicine Associations (EFSMA). “This is a top post in European Sports Medicine. In this election, I beat heavyweight contenders from Portugal, France, Hungary, Greece, Poland and Israel. It also showed that the backing of the MOC makes things much easier than one thinks. The aim of the federation is to further sports medicine in Europe, both as a specialty and also from the educational point of view,” he said.
He thanked his family for their continuous backing. His father is the popular Dr Joseph Micallef Stafrace, a former minister in the 1971 Labour government. He also considers his mother, Yvonne, as a main source of inspiration. “She obtained her MA Degree at the university and published two books on trade unionism. My parents never put any obstacles in my sporting career. I am also grateful to my brother Simon and sister Yana, both of them lawyers, as well as my girlfriend Nicola Buttigieg, a general practitioner. They are all sources of encouragement and Nicola has seen the light and has embraced exercise wholeheartedly,” he said.
He went on to say that at Sliema Wanderers FC, he was glad when the team won the first title since Robert Arrigo took over as president. “I think there are just a few people who give so much to sport. Robert deserved that success. He is a real gentleman and sports fan,” he said.
Micallef Stafrace’s last comment concerned the medical seminar to be organised by the MOC this weekend at the Dolmen Hotel. He said: “The topic will be sports science in children. We will have top international and local authorities on the subject coming over to lecture the participants. Above all, the seminar will have a section where obesity in schoolchildren will be discussed at length.”
At the end, he also thanked MOC president Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco, sports director Pippo Psaila and the general secretary Joe Cassar as well as his mentor, Prof. Fabio Pigozzi, without whose aid, he said, he would have never reached such heights.