Melita F.C. announced a new technical partnership agreement with HUB88 – an established technological company providing technical and software solutions to international organisations.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, Melita President Andrew Naudi said that this partnership was the first of its kind, not only for Melita, but for football in Malta in general, as it was a technological partnership that would further enhance the club’s reputation on the island.
Naudi said Melita and Hub88 shared the same vision: to foster and nurture talent, even through the use of technological advancements and software solution. He said that apart from a considerable financial contribution towards the club and the shirt sponsorship, the two parties will be working together to develop software solutions to analyse performance data of players through the use of technology thus providing technical staff with data that allows them to gauge performance better, understand and rectify tactical and technical issues.
Off the field of play, software solutions could be developed to encourage members to participate and contribute more to the decision making process of the club and further enhance the social and family environment the club is well known for.
The Melita president added that since Hub88 was part of a larger group of companies that sponsors clubs like Watford Southampton and Arsenal, Melita hope to leverage these connections to enhance opportunities for their coaching staff and players.
“The partnership is unique and the first of its kind for the club and for Malta as it is not just a financial contribution but much more than that. We are all looking forward to a fruitful collaboration with Hub 88 and hope that this will help the club bring success on and off the pitch.”
“Over the last year, we achieved a lot as a club but we have great plans for the future. Our promotion provides further challenges which we are confident that our senior team made up mostly of home-grown players with a few additions, including goalkeeper (Ryan Caruana), a former Malta national team player (Edward Herrera) and two new foreigners we will rise to the occasion. We look forward to the season ahead and the future of Melita.,” concluded Andrew Naudi.
Hub88 director Vladimir Negine explained that the company was established in Malta four years ago and after meeting top Melita officials, they saw how passionate they were about football and that is how they decided to give something back to the island, considering what Melita is doing for kids by growing their own talents.
Negine said that from that perspective, Hub 88 was not looking at just a simple t-shirt sponsorship or a financial transaction but at the introduction of something digital and technological for club, considering that Hub88 was first and foremost a technological company. That was why they wanted to utilise their strengths at the company to see how Melita could benefit from this through data analysis or any other software solutions the club would require.
MFA President Adrian Casha congratulated Melita for this partnership and said that over the past four years, the MFA identifying a comprehensive system to process all forms of data pertaining to the game of football, such as the registration of players, management of competitions, etc. The association eventually opted for COMET which is being used successfully and on which more investment is being carried out for the addition of new modules.
Casha said the Malta FA had revolutionised its technical part through Iterpro which combines sports science and software engineering innovation to build a cutting-edge system which integrates data to gauge performances and take decisions which are evidence-based for the national teams. He added that the association was also providing clubs with the Instat package which covers match analysis, scouting and talent identification.