Malta coach John Buttigieg is not happy that the national teams’ training scheme has been tweaked for the second time in a year but he pledged to support all efforts aimed at improving the level of local football.
“No coach in the world is happy if he can’t work with the players as much as he likes,” Buttigieg said.
“But this is the wish of the clubs. The system has already been changed twice since I took over as national coach. Nevertheless, we will continue to work hard for the benefit of our players.
“The level of training at clubs has improved in recent years. Regarding the decision to allow the national team players to go back to their clubs for two months after the Croatia qualifier, this is not new because we did the same last year.
“The only notable change is the omission of one training session, Wednesday, from our schedule. As far as I know, most of the clubs don’t train on Wednesday morning. Now, instead of training with us at Ta’ Qali, the national team players will probably sleep longer or go to work on Wednesday mornings.”
Buttigieg also expressed concern about the facilities available as some Premier League teams don’t have an 11-a-side pitch where to conduct training.
Bjorn Vassallo, the MFA CEO, also spoke about the discussions between the association and the clubs on how to enhance more co-operation for the good of Maltese football.
“Over the past few weeks, the association, Premier League clubs and the MFA’s technical centre have been involved in talks about the national teams’ training scheme,” Vassallo said.
“We have agreed a solution for a short period but we’re working to draw up a schedule that will take us through the end of the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign in November.
“This is a long process and we know that we need time, money and human resources to go forward but I’m convinced that all the parties are willing to work hand-in-hand to implement a long-term strategic plan designed to raise the level of Maltese football as a whole.
“With financial investment, you can improve the infrastructure but raising the technical level of our players is a far bigger challenge.”