Floriana Football Club on Thursday announced plans for a 4,000-seat stadium situated in the Independence Arena, an area otherwise known as ix-Xagħra tal-Furjana.

The plans were announced by the club’s president Johann Said during a press conference launching the club’s aspirations for the 2024/25 season on Thursday evening.

Said told members that central to his vision for the club is achieving self-sustainability and establishing a 4,000 seat stadium in the heart of Floriana.

The club said that the project will be done in collaboration with the investor MIG.

MIG Trade is owned by Dizz Group entrepreneur Diane Izzo, who has long sponsored the club in the hope of the commercialisation project being allowed to happen. Her company had supported similar attempts at a stadium by Said’s Sicilian predecessor Riccardo Gaucci.

The club, through its secretary Jacques Grima, also announced that  it was now formally recognised as a voluntary organisation, which was described as a "pivotal step towards securing the land title for the Club and further solidifying the CLub's foundation for future growth and stability."

The Xagħra tal-Furjana – also colloquially known as the Independence Arena – has had various uses in the past, including as training grounds for the British Military while Malta was still a crown colony and as a football stadium afterwards.

Notably, it was also the venue of Malta’s independence celebrations on 21 September 1964, and it was the location of where the Maltese flag was hoisted for the first time – hence the area gaining the name ‘Independence Arena.’

The area has not been used as a football venue for a long time – in recent years it was used as a car park.

It is not the first time that the football club has had plans to develop the land into a proper football facility.  The club launched plans in 2010 but nothing ultimately came of them, while past president Riccardo Gaucci had also fronted plans to develop a stadium in the arena as well. 

In 2016 he had expressed concerns over how long the application was taking to be considered – at the time Gaucci said that he had been working on the project for three years. Gaucci stepped down as Floriana FC President in October 2020, citing the fact that the club’s plans for the area had stalled as one of the chief reasons behind his decision.

Several football clubs have announced plans for new stadiums, but actually fulfilling those plans hinges on the clubs being granted commercialisation licences from a dedicated commission – a commission which many clubs have complained takes far too long to reach any sort of decision.

Gaucci himself had said upon his resignation that he could not understand the reason as to why a commission was appointed to then not take any decisions.

“For me, it is a bit of a mockery towards Maltese sport because if I deposit all the necessary paperwork and the commission doesn’t have all power to take the final decisions we remain hanging for several years with nothing happening. I cannot go on like that so it’s time for me to move away,” Gaucci had said.

During Thursday’s press conference, the club outlined its ambitions for the 2024/25 season, having come out of a 2023/24 season where it took Hamrun Spartans down to the wire for the league championship, only to lose out in the last couple of games – including an ignominious 5-0 defeat to the Spartans in the penultimate match of the season.

Since then there have been wholesale changes at the club: Darren Abdilla replaced World Cup winner Mauro Camoranesi as coach, while the club overhauled its squad with a number of transfers.

So far this season, Floriana made it out of the first round of qualification in the UEFA Conference League after beating San Marino side Tre Penne 4-2 on aggregate before falling to defeat against Portuguese side Vitoria Guimaraes in the following round.

Domestically, the club started the season last week with an entertaining 3-3 draw against newly promoted Melita FC.