Following months of consultation between stakeholders on the way forward to strengthening legislative tools available to fight the plague of corruption in sport, the Anti-Corruption Task Force, led by the Malta Football Association, recently discussed for the first time a new bill that would replace current laws which date back to 1976.

Representatives sitting on the Task Force had the opportunity to exchange views on the new bill with the Attorney General, Peter Grech, whose office drafted the legislation on the basis of an earlier report prepared by the Task Force itself.

“With both government and the opposition represented in this Task Force, together with other key components such as the Police Force, the Malta Gaming Authority and SportMalta, the forum provides a platform for a concerted approach aimed at stepping up the fight against bribery in sport on a national scale,” a spokesperson for the Malta Football Association said in a statement yesterday.

Apart from imposing harsher sanctions, the new draft law takes cognisance of new forms of corruption in sport and provides for mechanisms that would facilitate the prosecution of such criminal acts.

Once the bill is fine-tuned further, following these latest discussions, it will be presented to government for consideration at cabinet level with a view to initiating the formal legislative process as expeditiously as possible.