MFA president’s supporters shed doubt on rival’s credentials

The revival of a longstanding feud between the big men of Maltese football is being played out at the Malta Football Association, where president Norman Darmanin Demajo is seeking re-election, having clinched in 2010 the post long held by Joe Mifsud.

Fittingly, 'Dedé' will face his old rival's sidekick, the former MFA deputy president Peter Fenech, in an election to be held next week, on 20 July.

But while Fenech is campaigning on a platform that includes fighting corruption and rigging from betting cartels, as well as instituting whistleblowers' rules, supporters of the current MFA president claim Fenech's transparency credentials are tarnished.

"Fenech did not investigate the misappropriation of UEFA funds when he was chairman of an MFA board of inquiry," a Darmanin Demajo ally has told MaltaToday.

There is no love lost between Darmanin Demajo and Joe Mifsud. Erstwhile allies in the 1990s, the two men fell out over the handling of TV rights contracts involving national team matches. In 2008, Darmanin Demajo revealed documents pertaining to a June 2000 friendly between German side Bayern Munich and a Maltese team selection, for which a sum of money was allegedly paid to influence Mifsud's vote - he was then also a member of the UEFA executive committee - in favour of the German bid to host the 2006 World Cup.

The allegations led to libel proceedings against Darmanin Demajo, who upon being elected in 2010 told the press he would not carry out an internal inquiry on the allegations.

Except that he did carry out an audit, albeit related to UEFA's - the governing body of European football - solidarity payments to Maltese football clubs. It was this that had led originally to Darmanin Demajo's rupture with Mifsud, when he resigned as MFA treasurer.

Astonishingly, the internal audit presented in February 2013 to the MFA council proved that the MFA was not dishing out the full subsidies to the clubs. It showed that Joe Mifsud had admitted that the MFA used to retain a portion of the UEFA solidarity payments for clubs. Between the seasons 2002-03 and 2006-07, the MFA withheld around €68,000 of UEFA cash that should have been been distributed in full among the clubs. Mifsud, the audit report stated, "confirmed that parts of the funds were not distributed to clubs and were retained by the MFA".

Additionally, the audit proved that the MFA inflated the figures it claimed it had paid out to clubs in its letters to UEFA, to tally with the amount allocated. For four years, the MFA breached the UEFA solidarity payments scheme's rules by not transferring the amounts in full.

Peter Fenech, MFA deputy president at the time, as chairman of the MFA's board of inquiry did not investigate the allegations. Fenech claims, in a statement he published on Sunday, that Darmanin Demajo's allegations were never brought to his attention and that three letters to the MFA general secretary at the time, one of which was addressed to the board of inquiry, was never forwarded to him.

"During a council meeting of the MFA, I had come to know that the General Secretary had received three letters, one of which apparently was addressed to the Board of Inquiry of which I was chairman; however this letter was never brought to my attention nor was it passed on to me, and to date I have never seen such letter.  The president had mentioned the matter in the Council, and had proposed that since there were or were about to be presented libel suits before the courts concerning these allegations, MFA should not investigate and should allow the courts to investigate the matter.

"The council had agreed with this proposal and therefore I was never given access to the content of the letter in question.  The board of inquiry does not have the authority to investigate every complaint which it receives since in terms of article 68(1) of the MFA Statute, the board can only initiate an inquiry if so directed by the president, or by the executive or council of the MFA," Fenech says.

The letters in question were at the time published in newspaper Illum.

As things stand, Fenech's support from the local football clubs who elect the MFA's president looks hamstrung. His only nomination comes from Marsaxlokk FC's president Joe Baldacchino, the owner of Smash TV. Darmanin Demajo has been nominated by 11 clubs and one member association.

This alone does not guarantee a successful outcome for Darmanin Demajo, whose supporters claim that Joe Mifsud is openly drumming up support for Fenech with MFA delegates.

"It's pure politics," says one of Dedé's supporters. "Fenech can count on some Nationalist influence with the clubs because of his former political connections, while a particular Labour faction does not want to see him take the MFA presidency and bring in PN-friendly associates to take the coveted chief executive's post. You can trace a line from Ta' Qali right down to the Stamperija and Mile End."

Fenech threatens libel

On Sunday, Peter Fenech issued a statement in which he said he would be filing two libel suits against MaltaToday over the reports, which he said were "untruthful".

Fenech said that in the past he had filed three libel suits against MaltaToday and in one case he was awarded €18,000 in damages by the court, which he said he had not yet received. In reaction, MediaToday's managing editor Saviour Balzan said that the three libel cases heard by Magistrate Francesco Depasquale have been appealed by the newspaper.

"MediaToday will use every legal means at its disposal to cases to contest the libel cases filed against it," Balzan said.

On the reports published on the MFA presidency race, Balzan said that "everything stated in today's reports is factual and Peter Fenech is confusing the freedom of the press with the way he perceives things."