Prime Minister Robert Abela announced that U-16 athletes will not be able to practice any contact sport until April 11 as the government announced new restrictions as a mitigation for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing a news conference in Castille, Dr Abela said that as of Thursday contact sport for athletes from 16 years and under will be temporarily banned for the next few weeks while contact sport will only be permitted for senior athletes provided they continue to follow the medical protocol published by SportMalta.
The new COVID-19 restrictions have been introduced by the government and Public Health after a sudden rise of COVID-19 cases in the last few days which have also impacted sport both and senior and youth level.
In fact, sources have told The Times of Malta that aside from households, children’s extra-curricular activities were one of the main causes of the increase in numbers.
This was confirmed by Dr Charmaine Gauci, the Superintendent for Health, who said: “We were noticing of having clusters of children who practice contact sport. Since these children also attend school these were putting at risk other children with the result that were being ordered to observe a mandatory quarantine.
“Therefore we felt that action was needed as we didn’t want that it would impact in a negative way the education of our children.”
The new restrictions mean that nurseries for contact sport, such as football, waterpolo, and basketball among others, will be forced to stop for the coming weeks.
Added to that, a number of competitions in the different sport will be suspended with immediate effect.
In football, the league competitions from U-16 and under organized by the Youth FA will be stopped with immediate effect as well as the women’s U-15 league while training sessions at the MFA Academy will also be stopped.
It also remains to be seen whether the Youth League, open four U-19 league, could also be stopped given that several U-17 players play in these competitions.
As regards basketball, the girls’ under-16 championship, as well as the U-14 league for both boys and girls, will also be suspended with immediate effect.
In waterpolo, the new restrictions meet that training at youth level will also be stopped while the Development Cup, for U-13, U-15, and U-17 teams will also be suspended until April 11.