Allow me to congratulate Pierre Cassar on his article entitled "Glory in the pool for Malta" (The Times, Friday, August 30).

Whilst so doing, I also want to correct his misconception regarding the paragraph wherein he wrote about payments made out to foreign players, stating "when local clubs foolishly (my capitals) splashed thousands of liri..."

Mr Cassar clearly does not know the facts why the clubs he quoted sold their best players and settled for a less glamorous adventure in the second division.

I, as secretary of San Giljan ASC at the time of the re-introduction of the foreign players, felt offended by the word foolishly and its withdrawal would be appropriate.

Allow me to inform Mr Cassar and a host of other sports writers and commentators the true facts about the foreign player and also why some clubs had taken the drastic steps they took.

First of all, when my club brought over Milanovic all critics came to a conclusion that we were paying this player Lm10,000 when he was being paid around Lm3,000 plus expenses. That is, getting paid slightly higher than what our top Malta player was receiving.

Milanovic and all the foreign players of that year were pleased that the media was quoting that figure and as a matter of fact they used it as a lever when they negotiated the following year's contracts.

They also passed on some advice as what to ask for to those players coming over the following years. Naturally, their demands kept increasing year after year quoting the Lm10,000 Milanovic was supposed to have received but no one ever received anywhere near that figure. Our club's supporters and members kept contributing and we ended each year managing to avoid being in the red.

Secondly, what brought the club's downfall were the demands of the local players who asked for increases up to three hundred per cent.

During this period there was a club who was accommodating these demands and suddenly all players wanted to join this particular club.

The committee of San Giljan ASC, after carefully studying the situation, decided that the demands were too high and that it was not feasible anymore to compete in the first division. A motion presented by the committee was unanimously passed by a good number of members attending the annual general meeting.

This explains the downfall of the clubs cited by Mr Cassar and I hope that in future we will be given opinion in the media which will be backed by facts and not imaginations.