The decision to raise stadium entrance fees had nothing to do with the euro changeover, Malta Football Association (MFA) secretary-general Joseph Gauci said in a letter to the authorities dated 22 October. The MFA, he said, had last increased entrance fees to football stadiums eight years ago.

The letter was sent to Alan Camilleri, executive director at the National Euro Changeover Committee and copied to media institutions, in reply to a letter the NECC sent to the MFA on 11 October, regarding the announcement that the association would increase entrance fees to football stadiums as from 1 January, when Malta adopts the euro as its currency.

The association’s decision to increase entrance fees to football stadiums had nothing to do with the changeover to the euro, but rather had to do with increases in operational costs, the MFA said.

The MFA expressed disappointment at what it referred to as the changeover committee’s “lack of professionalism”. It said the NECC’s letter clearly showed that it simply relied on what was reported in the media and did not get in touch with the association to verify the facts.

The MFA also complained that the media were informed about the contents of the NECC’s letter, “together with rash and wrong assumptions, even before the faxed copy of the letter had reached the MFA… intended to try and publicly ridicule the association”.

In his letter, the MFA secretary-general claimed that during a media conference held on 10 October, MFA president Joe Mifsud had stressed that the decision to “slightly increase” entrance fees to football stadiums had nothing to do with euro adoption.

An NECC statement issued in the wake of the media conference, however, quoted the MFA president saying the increase in ticket prices was being made mostly because of the change from the Maltese lira to the euro.

The MFA said yesterday the decision was based solely on the association’s ever-increasing operational costs due to the increase in the price of commodities and services and to the annual cost of living increases over the past eight years, even though the MFA had to “think in terms of euro” when setting the new fees.