Five years ago, the Malta Football Association’s top echelons had ignored a letter alleging the association misappropriated funds from the European football association.
Norman Darmanin Demajo had claimed that the MFA was retaining some of the UEFA funds intended for member clubs. However, his call for an internal inquiry was dismissed.
MFA president Joe Mifsud had told council members no investigation was required because the allegations were to be thrashed out in a libel case he had filed against Mr Darmanin Demajo. The MFA council members accepted Dr Mifsud’s proposal
Five years on, the libel case is still being heard and Mr Darmanin Demajo now heads the MFA .
The spotlight shone again on the five-year-old allegations recently when, during a council meeting, the MFA president read out from an internal audit report commissioned when he became president.
The report confirmed the allegations. Not all UEFA funds passed on to the MFA were distributed to the clubs. The auditors found that the association retained a portion of the funds running into thousands of euros.
Of greater concern was that nobody apart from Dr Mifsud seemed to know of this practice and, when the accounts were passed on to UEFA, the sums handed over to the clubs were “inflated” to balance the books.
The solution is not simply a changing of the guard, as happened in 2010, but the creation of solid, independent structures that put in place a system of checks and balances.
A more serious concern is the harm this case causes to the MFA’s international and domestic reputation. It does little to bolster the association’s moral standing at a time when the football community is reeling under various corruption scandals.
Although under Mr Darmanin Demajo’s presidency UEFA funds have been passed on to member clubs in their entirety, there is still one aspect the MFA must correct.
UEFA money can only be passed on to clubs not associations. Under Dr Mifsud, the clubs had agreed to pass on a portion of the funds to the Gozo Football Association and the Youth Football Association.
Although clubs gave their blessing to the Youth FA and GFA allocations – unlike the allocation to the MFA (which Dr Mifsud said was invested in the association’s youth sector) – this practice is not in sync with UEFA’s guidelines on the distribution of solidarity payments. In fact, under UEFA guidelines this is still deemed to be misappropriation of funds.
This arrangement is still in place today under Mr Darmanin Demajo’s presidency. This decision must be reversed for credibility’s sake.
During the council meeting, Mr Darmanin Demajo did well to tell council members that lessons had to be learnt from this episode, most notably when allegations are made these should not be swept under the carpet but investigated.
However, these statements have now to be backed up by a review of the association’s internal mechanisms that ensure strict auditing, transparency and integrity
How the MFA conducts its internal business must serve as a benchmark for member clubs.
Although the audit report was read out in public, a copy was not made publicly available. More transparency would be a step in the right direction to correct the mistakes of the past.