The Malta Football Association together with the Premier League and Challenge League clubs agreed to make a request to Health Authorities for the lifting of restrictions on training as they aim to complete the respective leagues.
The decision was taken following a meeting between top MFA officials, including President Bjorn Vassallo and general secretary Dr Angelo Chetcuti and representatives from the sixteen Premier League clubs and the fifteen Challenge League clubs on Tuesday.
As of Friday 12th March, all organised sport activities were prohibited in line with Legal Notice 93 of 2021 – The Organised Sport Activities Regulations. All competitions were therefore suspended. The Superintendent of Public Health later explained that outdoor sporting and physical activity is permitted with up to a maximum of 4 persons doing the activity together.
Should restrictions be lifted on April 11, competitions could only resume towards the beginning of May as teams would need two to three weeks of training to regain shape.
All Premier League clubs have played twenty three out of the thirty matches while in case of Challenge League clubs, seven played twenty two matches, five played twenty one, two played twenty matches and one played nineteen out of the twenty eight matches.
In August, the Council had approved an amendment to Section VII – Rules Governing Competitions with regards to leagues being terminated due to force majeure.
The amendment states that:
- if a league is terminated prematurely, the classification following the last match played shall be deemed final, provided that all clubs have one-fourth or less of the competition yet to play.
- if not all clubs have played the same number of matches upon the termination of a competition as provided above, the classification of such competition shall be based on the average number of points each club obtained per match played until such termination.
- clubs that, at the moment of termination, would have already mathematically won the competition or have been mathematically promoted or relegated, where the respective competitions have not yet reached the stage as provided in the sub-article, they shall be declared abandoned and no champion shall be declared. Furthermore, in such case there shall be no promotions and/or relegations.
Therefore while Premier League clubs have less than one fourth of the matches yet to play, this is not the case of the Challenge League as only twelve of the fifteen clubs played three fourths of their matches.