A badly needed national sports centre

There was a time, and not many decades ago, when artificial surfaces and synthetic tracks were rather unknown in Malta and Gozo. It was only in the early 1990s, when we were to host an edition of the Games for Small States, that the then Nationalist government decided to build a heated swimming pool and a synthetic track at Marsa and introduce a modern system at Bidnija shooting range.

There was a time when facing the international media with primitive sporting facilities made us all blush. I recall Germany’s legendary Sepp Maier robed in inflated attire and looking more like a robot from outer space than a goalkeeper when he faced more than 70 foreign photographers as he took his position in goal at the “Floriana end” during a training session on the eve of the Malta-Germany international match at the Gżira stadium, which was notorious for its rock-hard surface.

The situation has, of course, since changed.

The government built useful and impressive sport complexes and ensured that, in building our schools and colleges for tomorrow, top class sport facilities were included in the plans.

Sport should be everybody’s life. The White Rocks village and leisure project, which is being negotiated with foreign investors, is a dream that all people of goodwill, sport administrators, coaches, trainers and athletes together with those involved in the leisure industry pray will materialise. It will see to the needs of 40 different sport entities but, more importantly, it will help nurture a popular and vibrant sports culture. As it is being targeted for elite and community use, it will certainly increase the number of active sport participators of all ages and abilities. The project is aimed mainly at athletes and Maltese families, especially with the prov­ision of an adventure park, an outdoor gym, walking and jogging tracks and also a cycling track.

Ambitious and talented athletes will gain the desired experience as they will be offered opportunities to improve their standards of perfor­mance. Apart from the fact that they will be training in ideal surroun­dings and under professional mentors, they will be in the company of gifted foreigners who will be using the state-of-the-art facilities for their training camps. This is simply one of the many advantages envisaged in such a highly needed project, which is to provide us with a national sport centre replete with a house of sport, a centre for sport science and a sport college that will meet the academic and sport needs of promising youngsters in a luxurious environment.

In this day and age we must have a national sport centre. It is badly needed and will serve a million purposes.

The project will attract foreign sport entities to use the facilities for their training camps, especially at a time when the weather conditions prevailing in their respective countries make it rather difficult for them to have any outdoor practice. It wil also attract sport conferences and competitions and will boost the economy and tourism figures.

On completion, the facilities will become the property of the Maltese government as from day one and, apart from other important conditions, the project will generate a minimum of 800 new jobs.

Having visited a number of sport centres like Crystal Palace, Lilleshall, Bisham Abbey, Cover­ciano, Acqua Acetosa and the German Sport University in Cologne, among others, I was always fascinated by the smooth running of these places, im­peccable cleanliness and excellent maintainence every­where, ranging from conference rooms, the playing and training areas, lecture theatres, sleeping quarters, the sitting lounges, dining rooms, the kitchens etc. Every description needs a superlative adjective.

People with a wealth of experience basically run the show in the mentioned places and, apparently, this important factor has been ascertained by the investors who enjoy a very high repution among international sport circles and are obviously more than interested to keep enjoying the name they have created for themselves. They are the best in the business.

Sport in Malta is run mostly by the voluntary sector that deserves a medal for its endeavours and determination. Forty sport entities and Maltese families are being given more than a medal. They are being given the White Rocks sport and leisure village and, surely, cannot wait to learn that the negotiations now in progress are positively concluded and even­tually presented and discussed in Parliament .

Everyone seems to be waiting for the word “go”.