Austria will be Malta’s opponents in the prestigious friendly announced last Tuesday by the MFA president Dr Joe Mifsud, while addressing the Council.

Speaking on the MFA’s programme on Smash TV on Thursday evening, Dr Mifsud revealed that Malta will be playing Austria, one of the two Euro 2008 hosts, and therefore one of the finalists, in that 30 May friendly.

Malta has met Austria on eight occasions already. The last time was last February when the MFA celebrated 50 years of participation in international ?the first international for Malta was against Austria at the old Gzira Stadium in 1957. On that occasion, the result was a 1-1 draw. The Austrians had also expressed their wish to host Malta in a friendly match.

Dr Mifsud also announced on Thursday that Armenia, Belarus and Iceland will be taking part in the international football tournament early in February. Matches will be played on 2, 4 and 6 February.

It is now also known that the fixtures for Group 1 of the forthcoming World Cup qualifying round will be made during a meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 6 January. Malta is drawn together with Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary and Albania in this group.