St Paul’s Bay club Sirens ASC are this year being sponsored by Hard Rock Café.
Dr Lino Vella, club president, said yesterday during a press conference at the Hard Rock establishment in Bay Street, St Julian’s, that Sirens will be looking forward to do well in the forthcoming summer league.
He said that for the past 20 years, Sirens had always finished among the top three teams and currently have five senior national team players in their squad. In the last three years, Sirens won the championship in 2005 and won the KO in 2004 and 2006.
Dr Vella thanked Hard Rock Café for being so generous, adding that such a sponsorship was indispensable for Sirens to be able to continue to challenge for the local major honours. He added that a club which wanted to keep high levels, at present, would spend around Lm100,000 to maintain a full squad.
Arthur Gauci, on behalf of Hard Rock Café, which opened its doors in Bay Street in 2005 and now also has a bar at Malta International Airport and a 140-seater at Valletta Waterfront, was glad to be associated with Sirens. He augured success for Sirens, especially after winning the winter league.
Dr Vella also announced that Sirens will have two foreign players this summer. In the first phase, Hungarian Szolt Vargas will be playing for the club, while the second phase will see the return of Tamasz Marcz, another Hungarian, who played for the club last year. This is because the world championship is being played in Australia and will not be over by the middle of next month.
Zzolt Vargas is 35 years old. He has played three times in the Olympics in 1992 in Barcelona, in 1996 in Atlanta, US, and in 2000 in Sydney, Australia, where he also won the gold medal with the Hungarian Olympic team. Earlier in 1997 and 1999 he had played for Hungary in the European Championship while in between, that is in 1998, he had played in the world championship, in which Hungary were runners-up.
During the past few years he was playing regularly in the Italian league, first at Savona and during the past three years, at Cremona.