The match against Slovakia on November 14 will most probably be the last time the national team wear Givova kits as Malta has joined the UEFA Kit Assistance Scheme for the period 2022-2026. Addressing the General Assembly of the Malta Football Association on Thursday, MFA General Secretary Dr Angelo Chetcuti revealed that the Malta national team will be wearing Erreà kits as from the next UEFA Nations League commitments in June.
Dr Chetcuti said that the process regarding the customisation of these kits is underway and the new kits should be unveiled in March 2022.
This will not be the first time the Malta national team will be wearing Erreà kits. In 2000, Erreà took over as kit sponsors from Kronos but were replaced by Diadora in 2006. For the past eleven years, the Malta national team wore kits by Givova.
Launched in 2007, the UEFA Kit Assistance Scheme supports Europe’s smaller associations who do not necessarily have bargaining power when negotiating with kit suppliers – consequently, use is made of UEFA’s bargaining power for the benefit of those associations, based on actual need and voluntary participation. The programme runs in two-year cycles under the auspices of UEFA’s Top Executive Programme (TEP). Adidas was the UEFA’s first partner for ten years. For the last four years, Macron provided customised kits for members of the UEFA Kit Assistance Scheme.
In December, UEFA announced that its new partner for the period between 2022 and 2026 will be Italian kit suppliers Erreà. National associations who join the Kit Assistance Scheme will have access to customised training wear and match-day clothing for their senior and Under-21 national teams.
Erreà Sport, based in Parma, were chosen through a tender process which emphasised criteria such as price, quality, range, kit personalisation, logistics and merchandising opportunities.
Founded in 1988, Erreà has also obtained the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certification on all articles, and has earned plaudits for research and development activities in relation to new fabric such as the recently presented antiviral and anti-bacterial fabric Ti-Energy.
Meanwhile while speaking on commercial matters, Dr Angelo Chetcuti said that despite the difficulties brought through by the pandemic, in recent months, the Malta Football Association signed partnership agreements with VisitMalta as national team official partner, Public Broadcasting Services as official broadcaster, Izibet as sponsor for the FA Trophy and BNF Bank as sponsor of the Inhobb il-Futbol Foundation Leagues.
The Malta FA is working on a rebranding process for the association which would lead to a change in the logo. He explained that the national team and the association will continue to have separate branding since the national team has a different audience.
The MFA General Secretary said that the Match Centre on the MFA website has been launched this summer, although at a later stage than planned. matchcentre.mfa.com.mt is now up and running but is still in a testing phase. He said the Match Centre brings together all competitions from the Premier League to the IFF Under-15 League and is based on COMET. As part of the rebranding of the association, a new corporate website will be launched as well.