Back in February the Malta Football Association, in collaboration with the Youth Football Association and with the support of McDonalds (Malta) Limited announced the launch of a new educational football programme for boys and girls. The programme which will run over the next three years, was named The McDonalds FootballPlus For Kids.

The next activity in this programme will take the shape of street football and will go to one of the local village cores, the Lija Parish Square, and will be held on Saturday 30th April. This month’s activity is being held in collaboration with Lija Ahletic F.C, Lija/Iklin Football Nursery and the Lija Local Council.

The McDonalds FootballPlus For Kids is one of MFA’s Grassroots Programmes, which forms part of MFA’s strategy for growth and retention in local football participation and was laid out as a result of the outcomes from our association’s participation in a UEFA Pilot Project amongst six chosen European National Football Associations, to offer marketing support to these NAs, with the ultimate aim for these associations to improve the image of football across Europe;
grow participation; grow fan Engagement; grow and optimise revenues from second inventory, and strandardise measurement.

MFA, with the support of its partners is stepping up its efforts to tackle the key challenges affecting the game and has committed to encouraging more people to play football more often across a range of formats, and to invest further in our educational programmes, targeting young footbalL players, coaches, administrators and parents

Above all we seek to improve the image of the game.

The McDonalds FootballPlus For Kids programme kicked off last February and so far Educational Football Festivals Were held in Mgarr, Zebbug and Dingli.

This year’s programme also incorporates the McDonalds Player Escort Campaign for the EURO 2016 Finals, which will take place in France later this year.

With applications closing on 18th April, It is now time for the winners to be announced.

Two local kids from amongst the hundreds of boys and girls who applied, will get the chance to earn a place to act as player escorts in the Semi Final Match being held at Lyon and the Final match of the EURO 2016. The MFA has added value to this campaign by offering no less than 75 other boys and girls the chance to act as player escorts in three international matches being played locally in the next months.

The three matches will be;
ITALY vs SCOTLAND – 29th May 2016
MALTA vs SCOTLAND – 4th September 2016, and
MALTA vs SLOVENIA – 11th November 2016