President Bjorn Vassallo announced that the Malta Football Association will be undergoing a reform to its statute in the coming months to increase the powers of the Executive Committee in the aftermath of the controversy generated by the verdicts reached by the governing body’s Council on Monday.

The Malta FA was subjected to a lot of criticism from a number of clubs and fans following the Council’s vote on Monday which saw Floriana being crowned as the new Malta champions despite the BOV Premier League was not completed on the pitch.

Club delegates also voted in favour of promotions from the lower-tier competitions and decided that no team will be relegated even if there was mathematical certainty.

These decisions inevitably created a lot of discussion and many questioned why the final decisions were not taken by the Executive Committee instead of the Council.

Vassallo said that according to the current rules in the MFA statute, the MFA ExCo didn’t have any power to rule on the competitions once they were brought to a close prematurely.

“According to our statute, article 56 1b gives the power to the Administration and the Executive Committee on the control and management of the competitions,” Vassallo said.

“Once the competitions were terminated early, the ExCo did not have any power to decide on these championships and their verdict and it had to be the Council.

“The Council is the biggest fora of the association so it was logical that for such a big decision they had to give a ruling.

“Added to that, legally when there are no rules on force majeure circumstances, it had to be the council that had to decide.

“However, I can confirm that in the coming months the Malta FA will be holding a reform process so that the powers of the executive committee will be extended to ensure that the association will come in line with how bodies govern in these times.”

Reconciliation process

Vassallo said that he is aware of the conflict that has been created between clubs during the last few weeks and he said that he as president of the association is committed to work hard towards a  successful reconciliation process.

“In football, there were many instances when there were conflicts between clubs,” he said.

“There were times in the 1980s and 90s when clubs didn’t agree on the foreign players and Standing Committees didn’t meet around a table for weeks and  months to discuss these disagreements.

“As MFA president I feel obliged to work hard to bring everyone back together. It remains to be seen if we will manage to do that but there were recent instances when a sense of maturity was shown and everyone returned back around the discussion table.”

The MFA president made it clear that the association couldn’t rely on Rule 7 of the competition rule which says that league verdicts can only be reached if the championship is completed, as it only applies if a competition is concluded.

“Once the championships were terminated there was a table to rely on to decide the sporting merit so I don’t agree that the decisions were controversial,” he said.

“Rule 7 was discussed on the Executive Committee and it was decided that it was only applied to a normal situation. This is an extraordinary situation where there are no regulations we have to turn to Article 49 and 161 of the statute who are clear on what has to be done and where the decisions should be taken.”

Vassallo reiterated that it’s still early to say when the new season will start and admitted that the Covid-19 pandemic could see the forthcoming campaign get under way in February 2021.

“It’s difficult to say when the season will start as we don’t have guarantees of what the situation will be,” the MFA president said.

“Our plan is to start in October but there is the possibility that month could turn out to be difficult due to the arrival of flu.

“If there will be no vaccine for Covid-19 it is a possibility that the new season will start in February and would put our clubs in a more favourable position for UEFA competitions as they would compete in the middle of the season when they are in peak form.

“But we will continue to stay in contact with the authorities and ensure that we safeguard everyone involved.”

Asked why the association did not take more time to make a final decision on whether football in Malta could resume as from next month, Vassallo said that the health and safety of players and officials took primary importance and the MFA ExCo could not delay their decision without guarantees from the authorities.

“It’s important to remember that we have huge responsibilities on the well-being of our players and officials,” he said.

“When last December we had an incident where a player was injured during a third division match, the MFA came under fire as it was accused of not safeguarding the health of the player and finished under investigation.

“Imagine what would have happened if we played without the authorities guarantees and new cases emerged.

“So I believe that we acted very responsibly because the health of our players will always remain our priority.”