In analysing most football leagues, we tend to focus on the big leagues such as the English Premiership and the Spanish La Liga. Smaller leagues are harder to follow, lack in-depth data and sometimes carry the accusation of match fixing. Any sports bettors are unlikely to make enough profit due to larger margins charged on such matches.

The Maltese Premiership is often ignored even in Malta itself, but this weekend it warrants attention: it's the last day of the league and four teams are battling out for relegation, while two have a shot at winning the title. In this article I analyse the probabilities of each outcome.

The Malta Premier League structure

The Malta Premier League is comprised of 14 teams that play each other twice.

There are no typical home and away matches as teams are too small to own stadiums (except for Hibernians, whose pitch is used to host Premier League matches).

The bottom two teams are relegated to the First Division (the lower division: one can see the British influence in the titles) while the team that is third-from-bottom faces the First Division's third-best team, in a play-off. To determine the final position in the league, a decider might be required.

Predicting the winner

Valletta and Balzan are currently top of the league with equal points. Therefore they would win the league if their outcome is better than the opposing team in the last match. For example, if Valletta win and Balzan draw, then Valletta will be crowned champions.

In the case of an equal outcome (both win, both draw or both lose), a decider between the two teams will decide the winner (that is goal average or direct encounters are not considered, unlike the World Cup)

Using the market odds as at Friday morning (April 20), Valletta are more likely than not to win their final match versus Gżira, while Balzan's match versus Hibernians seems to be a balanced affair.

This leads to the chances of the title ending up in a decider match as 34.4%. Valletta seem to have the upper hand with a 43.0% chance of clinching the title this Saturday, while Balzan's chances to win the Premier League without the need of a decider match is almost half as much, at 22.6%.

The relegation battle

The relegation battle is more exciting than the top of the league, as four teams (St Andrews, Mosta, Tarxien, Naxxar) are battling it out for the play-off (third-from-bottom). St Andrews and Tarxien are playing a direct encounter, taking destiny in their own hands should they win.

Naxxar are clearly unlikely saviours as they only have a shot at this if they win their final match while Tarxien lose. This would lead to Tarxien being on equal points to Naxxar and hence a decider match between the two would determine who reaches the play-off. After winning the decider match, Naxxar would need to win the play-off match against the third best team from the lower division.

Mosta just need a draw to be certain of a fourth from bottom position and not risk demoting to a lower division. They may however be forced to a decider with either St Andrews or Tarxien should Mosta lose, with the loser of the decider going on for a final play-off.

The different combinations of a play-off position are shown in the pie-charts above. Tarxien and St. Andrews are 37% and 26% likely to be in the playoff positions, but there is an astounding 37% chance of a pre-play-off decider.

Decider most likely

With an above 30% chance of a decider at either ends of the league, it seems this will not be the last weekend that Maltese Premier teams will play as there is more likelihood of at least one decider.

I just hope my team Mosta FC isn't one of the teams playing it.

Dominic Cortis is a lecturer in actuarial science and risk at the University of Malta.