Claudio Negroni, a member of UEFA’s competitions division, will be making an inspection visit ahead of next year’s 13th UEFA U-17 Championship as the MFA step up preparations to host the prestigious tournament.
As the championship, the last to feature eight nations before it is expanded to 16 teams in 2016, will be played in May, the 2013/14 domestic season must come to an end by the first week of the month, Bjorn Vassallo, the MFA CEO, said at yesterday’s council meeting.
The calendar will be tweaked with matches in the early rounds of the FA Trophy likely to be played during the week.
Despite facing competition from other countries, last year Malta was chosen by UEFA to host the 2014 U-17 championship which will be staged at four venues – the National Stadium, Centenary Stadium, Hibs Stadium and Gozo Stadium.
Malta’s future U-17 team (born 1997), under the guidance of Argentine-born coach Sergio Soldano, will take part in a quadrangular tournament in April as part of their build-up for the tournament.
The team will travel to Verona for a training camp during the Carnival period. In Italy, the Maltese boys will also play friendies against Padova and Chievo.
It was also announced yesterday that Pietro Ghedin’s national team will play a friendly away to Azerbaijan in August and that the U-21 squad will have a training camp in Sicily in March.
Prohibitions lifted
Floriana’s transfer prohibition has been lifted after the Greens settled debts with Msida St Joseph over the transfer of defender Tyrone Farrugia.
The Greens, who recently appointed Steve Vaughan Jr as president following the resignation of Justin Attard, are still beset by serious financial difficulties, however.
Several current and former Floriana players, including departed foreigners Aman Verma, Sunday Wasiu and Aaron Brown, have written to the Malta FA claiming unpaid wages from the Premier League club.
Ħamrun Spartans also had their prohibition lifted yesterday after paying outstanding monies to former coach Jesmond Zammit and his assistant Vincent Carbonaro before the deadline set by the MFA.
Besides avoiding a two-point penalty, the relegation-threatened Reds have also had their transfer ban annulled.
In another development, Malta FA president Norman Darmanin Demajo announced that the inquest into alleged irregularities in the distribution of UEFA’s solidarity payments between 2003 and 2008 is nearing its conclusion.
The Malta FA appointed a committee to probe the findings of the association’s financial department that around €74,000 were not distributed to clubs for five consecutive years.
According to Darmanin Demajo, the committee has already spoken to various individuals about the matter, including Joe Mifsud, the former MFA president.
The committee is preparing its report which, once completed, will be discussed by the Malta FA’s bureau.
• The Malta FA launched a new web portal which will comprise all the information and decisions issued by the association.
The portal, which has been created by the Malta FA’s IT Department, is mainly intended to facilitate access to MFA documents and the communication flow bet-ween member clubs.