Update 12.30 pm with PN reaction
Former judge Antonio Mizzi has offered to step down as the chair of the board of Malta’s sports integrity body, with the board’s secretary Frank Camilleri also tendering his resignation, Times of Malta has learnt.
Sources say that Mizzi, who chairs the authority’s seven-person board, tendered his resignation in recent days.
Meanwhile, Camilleri is believed to have offered his resignation on Monday afternoon.
The resignations are believed to have been a result of the difficult working relationship between the authority's board and its CEO Jean-Claude Micallef.
It is unclear whether sports Minister Clifton Grima will accept the two resignations, although sources say they will likely both be turned down.
The news caps a tumultuous fortnight for the authority.
Last month, Times of Malta revealed that CEO Jean-Claude Micallef had engaged a former football player, Jermain Brincat, to work with the agency despite him having been banned from football for life over match-fixing.
Micallef had initially denied Brincat’s engagement, despite his signature appearing on the contract.
Speaking on Andrew Azzopardi’s radio show days later, Micallef vowed payback for the leaked contract, saying that there was a common person linking this incident to a 2013 misappropriation case in which he was acquitted.
The case is believed to have torpedoed Micallef’s hopes of standing as a candidate for the 2014 MEP elections on the PN ticket.
Micallef did not reply when Azzopardi asked whether he was referring to Antonio Mizzi, who had originally presided over the case.
And Micallef also found himself in hot water over his alleged failure to pay an almost €20,000 bill owed to a contractor engaged by his private company.
In a statement, the PN said the Authority for Integrity in Maltese Sports (AIMS) should not be "a political football in Labour's internal disputes".
It said it was concerned the conflicts are harming the work of the organisation, which began operating in February 2022, tasked with testing athletes for banned substances and taking up the fight against match-fixing and money laundering in Maltese sports.
"The Partit Nazzjonalista calls on the responsible minister and, if necessary, the Prime Minister, to take the drastic action required before further damage is done to the integrity of sport in Malta, which, ironically, is the very purpose of AIMS," it said.
Former PL MP and Sport Malta chair Luciano Busuttil served as the authority’s CEO until his departure late last year.
Micallef was appointed his replacement, despite the reservations of several board members, some of whom would have preferred to see AIMS director Ryan Borg take on the role.
In 2022, Micallef announced his intention to head the body representing top-flight football clubs, the MPFCA, but that role was eventually taken up by former prime minister Joseph Muscat.
Borg, the former chief of staff of sports minister Clifton Grima, is the authority’s director of strategy, as well as a Sliema local councillor.