Birkirkara FC made it clear to everyone yesterday that they do not intend to relinquish the title won last season.

Addressing reporters at a news conference yesterday afternoon to introduce their new players, Joe Zammit, club president, said the club’s targets this season will be the championship, the FA Trophy and participation in the European competitions.

Zammit said that they had strengthened the squad considerably with the arrival of Frank Temile, Demba Toure, Matteo Bissi and Daniel Zerafa. He also added that Brazilian striker Johnnattann was also back and is training with the squad already. He added: “Moreover we have decided to retain Terence Vella this season after his experience at Hamrun where he was on loan.

“There will be two more foreign signings later this week or next week. One of them is a Nigerian and the other one will be a defender. After that, we will wait till December to see what we have to do in January. “We aim for a second consecutive title, doing much better in the Trophy where we failed in the past two seasons and maintain our record presence in the European club competitions,” he stated.

Club vice president Adrian Delia thanked the club members and supporters, as well as their sponsors – McDonalds, Powerade, U-Boat and MSV life - for their continued financial support to the club. He said that Laferla and Bet Clic did not form part any more of the list of club sponsors.

He also revealed that there is a foreign financial entity, which was not named, that is showing interest in helping the club to reach its targets.

Coach Paul Zammit said the project at Birkirkara FC had started four years ago. “We started building a new set up and a new structure. Then we started strengthening the squad to what it is today. We are basing our strength on the established players, but we are still intent on introducing young players from our nursery as we have been doing the past few years,” he said.

Zammit said he believed this was the only way forward for Maltese club football.

He added that his squad contained 20 players at present hoping that it will be increased to 22 soon. “The club should always be one of the leading challengers for the honours. But I also have to think of strengthening the set-up in the hope of doing even better in the future. We think we have managed to improve the levels at Birkirkara FC and now we are highly confident of reaching our targets. I acknowledge we are the team to beat at present, but that puts a lot of pressure on us. With each club allowed five foreign players on the field of play at any one time during a league match, the gap between the teams has been closed considerably. There should be more balance, but I still think that the title race will be foursome, that is between Birkirkara, Valletta, Hibernians and Sliema. All these four clubs will be under pressure because they are considered as having the best talent in local football,” he said.

Zammit referred to the opening three matches in the league this season where Birkirkara appeared to be struggling to score the goals that matter, and said: “We suffered a lot in these opening matches. We are aware that most of the sides will be defensive-minded against us, but we will have to find the right solutions. There were other reasons: for example, the participation of most of our players with the national squads. But overall, I am proud with what the players have done so far this season,” he said.