While match fixing in Maltese football has decreased, football players plying their trade in Malta’s football pyramid may still be afraid to report match fixing attempts to the authorities, the secretary general of the Malta Football Players Association Carlo Mamo believes.
Interviewed by The Malta Independent on Sunday, Mamo – a former Malta national team player – also highlighted a recent survey by the MFPA which shows that half of the footballers playing football in Malta’s top division face salary delays of up to three months, despite the fact that clubs which fail to pay salaries could be subject to transfer bans once the matter is reported.
While acknowledging that improvements have been made, Mamo stressed that the MFPA will keep striving to safeguard the rights and interests of players, actively promoting dialogue with important stakeholders to bring about positive change.
Ranging from contract and termination settlement drafting, to free mental health and anti-doping sessions delivered by experts, first aid sessions, a facility to report abuse online, another to report match fixing attempts anonymously, and also support to parents when it comes to navigating Malta’s complex youth transfer systems, the MFPA is an extremely important stakeholder when it comes to making life better for the players themselves.
The MFPA represents some 1,200 male and female footballers in Malta, with around half of those being professional – meaning that they are paid to play football either full-time or part-time – and the other half being amateur and over the age of 16.
But what do we mean when we use the term ‘professional’ in footballing terms in Malta? Mamo tells The Malta Independent on Sunday that if one looks at the matter purely from an employment perspective, many of the players in Malta’s Premier League (the top tier out of three in men’s football) are employed on a full-time contract. Some – including national team players – are still on part-time contracts, but Mamo estimates that each of the 12 clubs in Malta’s top level has around 14 or 15 players who are employed as footballers on a full-time basis.
“If you define being professional in the sense of structures, facilities, and other things I think there is a lot to be done,” Mamo however adds.
Asked to elaborate, Mamo says that the structure of a Maltese football club is such that it depends on one person or a very small group of persons for financing – something not sustainable as when these persons leave, then the club must find a replacement or potentially endure financial struggles which might force the club to adjust its ambitions.
He continues that, although progress has been made, the facilities which most of the football clubs train at are not up to scratch either: not all clubs have a pitch, and very few of those who do are certified by FIFA – it’s only the MFA’s Centenary Stadium and a host of artificial pitches re-laid in the last year or so which are certified.
“We have a Premier League where players aren’t really comfortable saying that they will dedicate a few years to playing football because they know about the uncertainty that this brings,” Mamo says.
He refers to a survey which the MFPA ran two weeks ago, which he said found that only around 50% of players plying their trade in the Premier League are paid on time by their clubs: the majority of the other 50% reported that they face a delay of one to three months to receive their salaries.
“Being three months behind on pay if you have a loan, or family commitments and such, even if you are covered by regulations that state that a club cannot be that far behind in payments makes the situation difficult,” he says.
He says that he thinks that the fact that the Premier League will go from 14 to 12 clubs will help the situation, “but to compare ourselves with clubs abroad and say that we are fully professional… I don’t think we are. Before we solve this issue where a club’s situation is so volatile, it will be difficult.”
Expanding on the salaries issue, Mamo says that it isn’t as common as it was in the past for clubs to be late on salary payments, but that is also in part because there are now consequences and mechanisms which didn’t exist beforehand.
A full-time footballer who has not received their wages for two months may file a dispute against their club – something the MFPA can do on their behalf – in order to be paid what they are owed and also be paid the remainder of their contract. Part-time footballers can resort to the same facility, but only after they go four months without a pay cheque – something Mamo notes is a touch on the long side.
If the club in question does not pay what they owe within 15 days, they are then banned from registering new players for their squad – effectively a transfer embargo.
Mamo says that the MFPA handled some 70 disputes on non-payments during last season, but explains that this period usually sees less such disputes being opened on the basis that the final transfer window of the season has closed.
“The problem I see is that because of the uncertainty within which many clubs operate, most contracts are done for a year, meaning that if a player were to write in February, the last transfer window has already closed and they’ll have to spend three months without playing,” Mamo says.
“So around this period, the players tend to up with it until the end of the season and then come to us when matches for the year have finished and we open a dispute for the money that they are owed,” he continues.
“Objectively, the amount has decreased – it’s still there unfortunately, and unfortunately it’s something which is taken for granted probably also because those players who have a full-time job besides football put up with it and allow more time before taking action on it,” he adds.
Youth football: Malta’s youth transfer system which turns children into financial commodities
The MFPA drew attention a couple of weeks ago when it filed a complaint with the Office of the Commissioner for Children on behalf of parents whose children have been affected by regulations concerning youth contracts.
Under current regulations, a child is tied to a specific club for a three-year period between the ages of 12 and 15 and a further four-year obligatory period between the ages of 15 and 19. A child cannot move to another nursery without the consent of the club even if he/she is unhappy or is not getting playing time.
“This report was filed due to the fact that a large number of parents come to us on a weekly basis with cases where they want their child to move clubs but they are asked for an exaggerated amount of money for the child to be allowed a transfer,” Mamo says.
This is a system, Mamo says, which does not exist in other countries which are part of FIFPRO - the worldwide representative organisation for football players which MFPA also forms part of.
“We do understand that the expenses to run a nursery are not small, and that some nurseries do not charge enough to cover these expenses, and we also understand that if a player wants to leave they must pay for the service they got in order to leave, but definitely this money doesn’t go up to exaggerated figures… we’ve had cases where parents were asked to pay €2,000, €3,000, or €4,000 for their child who isn’t getting any game-time to move clubs,” he says.
Just recently, he says, the MFPA filed three claims where parents were forced to pay €1,500 for their child to move clubs despite the fact that the child in question was not playing with their current club.
“These things are not acceptable, and that’s why we filed a claim with the Office of the Children’s Commissioner,” he says.
Mamo continues that the MFPA found support from the Children’s Commissioner and the matters had been referred to the MFA. Talks at social dialogue committee level, he says, are ongoing and the MFPA is set to receive proposals on this matter by 10th February.
“I hope we find a solution to ameliorate this situation so that with new regulations we can eliminate abuse and create a system which is fair for clubs and players. We were seeing that a lot of players stop between the ages of 15 and 19. A lot of players coming here and finding themselves in this situation where they are asked for money to go to a club which is usually a couple of divisions down because they are not finding space to play where they are would tempt them to stop playing. That’s a pity, and that was the focus of our talks with the MFA,” he says.
It is an MFA where change may be afoot: 2024 is an election year at the association which runs football in Malta. Current President Bjorn Vassallo is seeking re-election, as are the current vice-presidents Adrian Casha and Matthew Paris, while MFA Executive member Dana Farrugia is also contesting for the third Vice-President seat which must be filled by a female candidate.
But they are not alone: former Premier league footballer Ridha Dardouri is set to contest against Vassallo for the top role, Marsaskala FC President Pierre Miceli will also contest for a Vice-President post, and there is talk that the field of candidates could yet expand further.
It’s within this context that many proposed reforms and ideas for Maltese football are being shared. Asked what the MFPA thinks should be a priority reform, Mamo says that one of the most important areas is definitely the youth sector.
“The clubs need more help when it comes to coaching education, training facilities, number of matches, equipment… there are a lot of shortcomings at the moment,” he says.
The fact that there is a big number of clubs – Malta has one football club for every single recognised locality with the exception of Safi, although not all of them have youth nurseries – doesn’t help because it means that resources are thinly spread, he continues.
He praised the Regional Football Hubs project, run by Inħobb il-Futbol Foundation within the MFA, but added that this must continue being built upon and said that there must be more investment so that youths promoted into new age groups have more opportunities for playing time.
Mamo also believes that there should be incentives for clubs to combine their resources: it’s not unprecedented in Maltese football - the clubs around the Three Cities used to combine into one youth nursery named Cottonera, while a more recent project called West FC, which saw Mtarfa FC, Dingli Swallows and initially Rabat Ajax FC combine, is now in its third season.
There are other issues such as facilities and club sustainability which Mamo reiterates must be addressed, but the youth sector is certainly important in the long-term, he adds.
Match fixing: ‘We definitely need to do more’
Maltese football broke out of the sport pages in recent weeks after Nationalist MP David Agius told Parliament that match fixing is rampant and that the culprits behind it are known. The remarks drew a response from the MFA, which labelled it as “mere speculation” and a “slap in the face” to footballers and fans alike.
Still, match fixing cases are not unheard of, even in recent years. It is a thorny subject within the footballing community, and asked how often the MFPA comes into contact with cases where somebody believes or suspects the possibility of match fixing, Mamo says that it’s not often, but adds that he believes that “there is still a fear to report.”
Mamo says that a reporting mechanism – FIFPRO’s Red Button app – which is tried and tested was introduced in Malta, and successfully utilised as a person was imprisoned for match fixing on the back of a report through this system, “but I speak to players and they are still not confident.”
“We’ve had conferences where a player who reported match fixing said that given what he went through after he made a report, he would think twice today if he had to be in that situation again even with the Red Button app, because one still needs to go through the MFA’s Integrity Officer and the police,” Mamo says.
It is also a matter of education: Mamo laments that only one Premier League club – Santa Lucia FC – had taken up an offer by the MFPA together with the MFA’s Integrity Officer for a talk on the Red Button app. He believes that such sessions should be mandatory for a club to receive a licence to compete.
Mamo refers to a survey which the MFPA had collaborated with the University of Nicosia in Cyprus on some years back.
The survey, which was reported by The Malta Independent back in 2021, found that 27 out of a total of 114 football players from Malta’s footballing pyramid (23.9%) reported that they had been approached to fix an official game, while 11 (9.6%) said that they had been approached to fix a friendly match.
However, a staggering 93 out of the 114 respondents (81.6%) said that they had suspected that an official match they played in was fixed.
“The decrease in the number of reported cases indicates that there isn’t as much match fixing as there was in the past – but I believe that even as that survey shows it’s still a problem not just in Malta. There is a mechanism to report, but we definitely need to do more in the educational aspect, and from the police resources perspective,” he says.
But at core, it must be the players themselves who must report it, and Mamo believes that there is still a sense of fear around.
“I think a lot of players are still afraid… when you hear a player who went through it and say that today they would think twice, I feel like we’ve taken a step back: so back then he found the courage to report, but after seeing what he went through and what happened to him when he reported he would now think twice… that’s a really bad advert,” he says.
Still, the MFPA works to promote the Red Button app, also with the assistance of Premier League footballer Samir Arab who was banned from football for two years for not reporting a match fixing attempt – despite at the time there being no safe or anonymous way to do so.
“But we definitely need to do more.”