UEFA President Michel Platini and FIFA president Joseph Blatter are expected to visit Malta next year as the Malta Football Association celebrates fifty years of membership in UEFA and FIFA and hundred years since the first ever league championship was played in Malta.
Malta was accepted as a provisional member of FIFA in 1959 and was approved as a member in 1960. Malta joined UEFA in 1960. Meanwhile the first ever league championship was organised in season 1909/10.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, MFA president Dr Joe Mifsud gave details about some of the activities which will be marking these anniversaries. Dr Mifsud said that the main objective of these activities was to increase the popularity of the game in Malta.
An online quiz will be held for children in collaboration with General Soft Drinks while a set of five stamps depicting five different stadiums, which used to host MFA competitions throughout the years, will be issued. A souvenir book will also be published.
Among the events to be held in Malta are a UEFA seminar on marketing as part of the KISS Programme, two seminars for referees – one for the new referees on the FIFA list and another for the top referees in Europe and the UEFA Executive Committee meeting which will be held in January. This will be followed by a gala dinner at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta for which all presidents of the European football associations, FIFA president Joseph Blatter and representatives of member clubs will be invited.
Later this month, the draws for the National League 100 Anniversary Cup will be held. This knock-out competition will be open for all member clubs from the Premier League to the Third Division.