Around 5,000 Scottish fans are expected to make the trip to Malta next month for their country’s opening 2018 World Cup qualifier against Malta at the National Stadium, the Malta FA said yesterday.
Norman Saliba, head of the MFA Marketing Department, said they had allocated the North Stand, with a maximum capacity of 4,000 spectators, to their counterparts from Scotland.
However, he added, they’re expecting at least another 1,000 tickets to be sold to other Tartan Army followers through the official ticketing website.
“We had a strong request for tickets from Scotland for the World Cup qualifier against Malta on September 4,” Saliba told a news conference.
“We have reserved the entire North Stand for the visiting fans who acquired the tickets from their association. However, we are also expecting other Scotland fans to buy match tickets from our website and if so they will be seated in West A Stand.
“We’re not expecting any security issues for this particular qualifier. We are urging both sets of fans to give their backing to the their teams but with a great sense of maturity so that everything will run smoothly, without security problems.”
The Malta FA is said to be pleased with how the Goal Card sales are going.
“True, we’re satisfied with the Goal Card sales,” Saliba said.
“We had a significant increase compared to the previous two issues of the season ticket.”
Bjorn Vassallo, the Malta FA general secretary, noted that the World Cup qualifier against Scotland will be the first to be played on a new surface that is currently being laid out at the National Stadium.
“The pitch project is progressing nicely and we have now entered the final phase,” Vassallo said.
“The turf carpet is already taking shape and we’re sure that the pitch will be ready in time and according to schedule.”
In the build-up to the Scotland match, Pietro Ghedin’s national team will play a friendly against Estonia on August 31.
Vassallo yesterday revealed that the Malta FA are currently engaged in talks to stage another warm-up match – at home on November 15 – against a side that figured in the Euro 2016 earlier this summer.
Turning his attention on the 2018 World Cup campaign, Vassallo said the aspirations were to avoid bottom place in the final group table for the first time.
Besides Scotland, the other teams in Group F are England, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
“This is something we never managed to achieve before but we are hoping not to finish last this time,” he said.
“At present, the national squad only has six players on full-time basis and that puts us at a disadvantage when facing other teams with a complete roster of professionals.
“But despite the difficulties we still succeeded in bridging the gap with other countries from a technical point of view. Now, we are also hopeful that in the World Cup campaign our team will be able to gain a few points as well.”
Squad additions
The MFA continues to look for potential foreign-based players who could play for Malta.
“At the moment there are two players, one in Italy and the other Tunisian, who are being monitored,” Vassallo said.
“However, these procedures take time to complete. In Ryan Gambin’s case, for instance, it took us two years to finally provide him with a passport.”
Winger Priso Doding, formerly of Valletta and Sliema Wanderers, has also applied for a Maltese passport but it seems he will have to wait at least until the end of the year before he gets the document.
Tickets for the Malta-Scotland match are already on sale with the following prices: West Stand €25, Millennium Stand €15, South Stand and North Stand €10.