It is perhaps vastly ironic that, at a time when the game of Association Football in Malta is at such a low ebb, the president of the Malta Football Association, Joseph Mifsud, has been elected to the esteemed position of one of the vice presidents of UEFA, the European organisation and administrative body. Dr Mifsud has served as a member of the executive committee of the same body since being elected for the first time in 1994.
He justly deserves this honour. Under his presidency, Malta's most loved and followed sport - football - has improved its infrastructure by leaps and bounds. The association itself has moved from the narrow streets of Valletta to its modern offices housed on the Fifth Floor of the National Stadium in Ta' Qali. All member clubs now have their nurseries and some even have their own stadiums or mini-pitches.
Additionally, women's football has made considerable improvement and Futsal is an area of high growth, giving many amateur participants playing scope, which they would not experience at higher levels. Malta's international representative teams, although not necessarily always achieving desired results, are well administered.
Tragically, however, there has always been a strong underlying current that Malta's most popular sport is heavily tainted with bribery and corruption, accusations and suspicions going back many decades. Yet, for various reasons, hard evidence has proved to be scarce and very few cases were actually brought to light and dealt with.
Against such a backdrop, this season's revelations of "game fixing" are a veritable earthquake shaking the very foundations of the game, involving players, club committee members and referees. The cases brought to light so far have rightly been dealt with speedily by football's administrators and by the law courts. It would appear, however, that there is much more and much worse to come. Former Malta national coach Pippo Psaila speaks of the "tip of the iceberg" and former Hibernians coach Fr Hillary Tagliaferro has called for educaiton in clubs to promote the value of sports.
If this is a time for expurgation, then, no matter how unpleasant it is, it surely must be done with courage and conviction. As it is, there is already an alarming spiral of high inflation among major clubs. A stigma attached to those who participate as club committee members means that many public-spirited persons who could be of great benefit to the game refrain from actively participating.
The tentacles of this octopus are far-reaching and sinister and not merely confined to corrupt "enthusiasts" using bribery and corruption to secure favourable results. Behind the scenes and highly operative even before the advent of online bookies, the country has always had its "street bookies", congregating and operating from well-known areas, betting high stakes on results.
Dr Mifsud has always made it perfectly clear - as have other presidents before him - that there is no room for such activity within the game and that those found guilty will be dealt with in the harshest of terms. The MFA is planning to introduce the strictest of measures as from next season to govern the activities of club committee members, including prospective members signing a liability undertaking of at least €100,000, which they would have to forfeit if found guilty of any attempt at bribery and corruption.
The MFA, the police and the law courts must work together to strike off the serpents crawling around the head of this ugly Medusa.