I write with reference to the article entitled “Malta Rugby Football Union pitch broken promise” (TMIS, 6 September). As chairman of the Royal Malta Golf Club (RMGC) I am able to reveal that golf has also been promised the land mentioned in the article by the authorities. In fact, so have various other sports. The whole Marsa area is traditionally a hive of rumours and half truths, ranging from hotels being built, timeshare projects, another 18 holes of golf added, the race track enlarged and the road moved – the boundaries are unlimited.

Maltese sport was somewhat surprised (and pleased) that in January this year, the Parliamentary Secretary for Sports, Clyde Puli, announced that the government was finally addressing the problem and drawing up a Master Plan for Sport at Marsa. As I understand it, the plan, collated by Mepa, will take into account representations by all sports currently occupying, or wishing to occupy, the land at Marsa. It will further take into account the uniqueness of each sport, and therefore the facilities it will require to grow and flourish. This particularly applies to golf, where The Royal Malta Golf Club (RMGC), as a part of the Marsa Sports Club, currently has 750 fully paid-up members, playing golf on an area that is half the size of a regular golf course!

Realistically, we are oversubscribed by a good 250 members, with the direct result that the course is drastically overplayed and it is very difficult for members to book a tee time to play. The effect of this over subscription is that sports tourism has had to take a back seat for us. In the early 2000s the RMGC hosted up to 12,000 tourism rounds a year, generating not only solid income for the golf club, but residue income for hotels, airlines, restaurants and other tourism related activities. This year, not because of the recession, but merely due to capacity issues, we have only been able to offer 2,300 tourism rounds to visitors. The side effects of this are vast conferences that would have chosen Malta as a destination have gone elsewhere, simply because their delegates could not host their after conference golf here. Regular repeat golfers have gone elsewhere because we were unable to accommodate them and our partner hotels report the loss of business because we cannot support their golfing guests.

Considering the above, I am somewhat mystified that rugby, as a sport, is so hung up on the Marsa area. Rugby uses a single pitch at weekends, half of the year, with the remaining months seeing the space turn to dust – literally. Rugby (like soccer), unlike golf in Malta, can be played literally anywhere there is a space large enough to site a pitch.

Rugby was promised facilities in the government’s electoral programme – a luxury not afforded to all. That those facilities may not be on the exact square footage that they are today should not stress them; some sports have just a fraction of what they really need.

Given the above, instead of criticising the very people that are now trying to help them, Rugby Malta would do well to follow the example that the rest of the sports that occupy the Marsa area do, and that is let the Parliamentary Secretary do his job.

Paul Stoner

Chairman

Royal Malta Golf Club