Maltese football system ‘discouraging players’ from turning professional

Malta’s 2-0 defeat against Iceland means that the national team will once again end the year without a single victory. It was a defeat made more painful as it served to expose the stark difference between the lack of footballing progress made in recent decades by Malta, and the leaps and bounds made by Iceland – a country with an even smaller population. 

For the Malta Football Players Association, the problems run deep within the Maltese football system, which they warn discourages players from turning professional. 

The nursery compensation fee, in which parents are made to fork out thousands of euros to nurseries when their children transfer between clubs, recently hit national headlines during the Xarabank TV programme. However, as MFPA secretary general Konrad Sultana explained, there are further barriers standing in the way of the professionalization of the local game. 

Every club that signs a player on his first professional contract must pay training compensation fees to all his former clubs, with amounts ranging into the thousands of euros – effectively forcing the less wealthy clubs to sign players on as amateurs instead. 

Malta also remains the only European country in which clubs cannot sign out-of-contract players for free, but must pay their former club a compensation fee. This fee is calculated on a set of MFA parameters – such as caps, call-ups by the national team and whether the player is transferring to a club in a higher division. Since parameters only apply to Maltese players, clubs often choose instead to sign for free out-of-contract foreign players from abroad. 

“Essentially Maltese footballers are being treated like slaves,” Sultana said. “Everywhere in the world, a player’s bargaining power increases as he approaches the end of his contract as he can essentially threaten the club to leave for free if they do not raise his salary. 

“In Malta, it’s the reverse and indeed clubs often warn players that they will release them if they don’t accept a salary cut.” 

He pointed at Jake Grech, the 21-year-old captain of Hamrun Spartans, who last summer signed a five-year contract extension with his club. 

“Valletta were interested in him when his contract was running down, but weren’t willing to fork out €30,000 in parameters. Ultimately, this means that Grech won’t get to experience European football.” 

To make matters even worse, while full-time players can expect to earn an average of €1,500 a month, they are given scant remedies when clubs fail to pay them on time. 

“There are many cases in which players are owed up to seven months of wages,” Sultana told MaltaToday. “How can a person even think of becoming a full-time footballer if his salary isn’t guaranteed?”

These players can seek permission from the Malta Football Association’s council to sue their clubs, but the council is vastly composed of club representatives and their requests often fall on deaf ears. Indeed, Sultana pointed out that the councilo has never ruled in favour of a player in such cases. 

Players can still opt to bypass the MFA and sue their club in court, but MFA regulations state that they must suspend themselves from all football-related activity for the duration of the litigation, as was recently the case with former Malta international George Mallia. 

“Not many players are ready to sacrifice their entire careers to fight their cases in court,” Sultana said. “This goes against the fundamental rights of football players.”

‘Malta can emulate Iceland’s success’ 

The current situation does not look bright for the Maltese national team – currently ranked 178th in the FIFA rankings, its worst ever ranking and behind the likes of Laos, Gambia, and Vanuatu. 

Since 2013, they have only won three games – a World Cup qualifier against Armenia and two friendlies against Lithuania and the Faroe Islands.

Yet Sultana remains confident that Malta can one day emulate the success of Iceland – who reached the quarter-finals in last year’s European Cup, knocking out once-mighty England on the way. 

The key to taking Maltese football to the next level, he insists, lies in encouraging youths to ply their trade abroad from a very young age.

“If a footballer isn’t playing abroad by the time he is 20, then it will be very difficult for him to make it. It’s not just about the quality of the football, but about the lifestyle – eating, training, resting and living like a professional footballer. Unfortunately, most Maltese players return home after a week or two abroad.” 

As a solution, he proposed that the MFA set up a dedicated team and fund to help the youths ease into life at a foreign club for the first three months – such as by helping them find accommodation and by buying flights for their parents to visit them. 

“Some Maltese youths fail abroad because they don’t want to lose the comfort of living in Malta, but others are sent to unpleasant places, given awful food, and aren’t treated well by other players – who see them as competition. We cannot expect a player who was raised up in an amateur system to go abroad and suddenly adapt to a professional structure.

“At the end of the day, it will be an investment, but stakeholders must start pulling the same rope with the intention of improving the national team. Iceland are successful because they had a clear strategy to develop a generation of players for the national team. Malta used to beat Iceland 30 years ago, and look where we are now…”