Anthony Chircop, of Qormi, writes:
Please allow me a few lines to elaborate on what I said during a Malta Olympic Committee press conference last week.

I said that "coming from a sport association myself, I know that the funds that the sports associations are receiving from both government and the MOC are not enough to fund the targets that the Director of Sports had just mentioned and we all here would like to achieve".

While I do understand that government would like to budget more funds for sports, I also appreciate the fact that government has other priorities high on its list, such as Education and Health. Perhaps, the time has come for local sports associations to come together, under the co-ordination of the MOC, to organise fund-raising activities which funds would go directly to the associations.

I gave an example saying that the Awards Night being organised next week, could have been opened to the public, so that family members and friends of athletes could attend as a fund-raising exercise.

I had also stated that I strongly believe that the idea of the issue of a bi-monthly magazine, to promote athletes individually as well as the sports associations themselves, can still be implemented if the associations and the MOC would somehow agree to share the costs involved.

I put these two together as I think that 'promotion' and 'fund-raising' work in tandem.