The European Commission held a very important workshop to discuss initiatives to fight match-fixing.The Malta Football Association was represented by the Integrity Officer, Franz Tabone.
Dr Dominic Micallef, MGA Chief Investigations and Enforcement Officer, Dr Carl Brincat, MGA Senior Legal Advisor and Inspector Sean Scicluna from the Malta Police also attended the workshop. The event was supported by the EU Intergroup on Sport and by the Intergroup on Transparency, Corruption and Organised Crime. A number of speakers coming from gambling commissions, law enforcement, monitoring companies, intelligence agencies expressed their views and described the alarming developments taking place in the betting world and how best to avoid further damage. Tony Higgins from Fifpro talked about the importance of educational programmes for football players and how his organisation is trying to tackle the match-fixing situation. Stanislas Frossard , Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport, spoke about the Council of Europe Convention on Match-Fixing, again highlighting the importance that this is endorsed by all countries and brought into effect. This workshop was another important opportunity for MFA to share its experiences and initiatives and also to keep abreast of what is happening in the match-fixing world. Attendance at these events strengthen MFA’s contacts whilst also establishing new ones facilitating mutual collaboration across Europe.