Dr Hassan Mustafa, President of the International Handball Federation, paid a short visit to Malta last week. 

He was part of the Egyptian Olympic delegation which met the Malta Olympic Committee in a bid to gain support to host the Mediterranean Games in 2017 in Alexandria.

During his stay here, Dr Hassan took the opportunity to meet the President of the Malta Handball Association, Louis Borg, who was accompanied by Clyde Borg Conti, vice president and Alan Grima, technical director.

At the meeting Dr Hassan remarked that he was very pleased with the MHA’s work under the guidance of its president, in promoting the game of handball locally and pledged to do his utmost to increase the local association’s budget for future development and in order to promote the game further. 

Recently the MHA had received various items of equipment, through its development programme, which was distributed to the five clubs during the association’s annual Presentation Ceremony which was also attended by Clyde Puli, Parliamentary Secretary for Sport.

Malta’s problem of lack of courts was mentioned and Dr Hassan was quick to promise the possibility of an indoor and outdoor professional flooring which can be made use of at different venues on the Island. T

he Malta Handball Association also asked Dr Hassan to help them in their International Senior Programme now that the Challenge Trophy is restricted to players under 23 years of age.

At the end of the meeting Dr Hassan presented the IHF banner to Louis Borg, who in turn thanked the IHF president and promised to work harder together with his team to attract more youngsters to play this game and wished him more successes within the IHF.