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Ray Abdilla looks at the foreign player influx and how it affects the local sports scene

Malta takes advantage of globalisation

Everyone had words of praise for the Maltese contingent’s achievement at the Small Nation’s Games.

There were medals galore and much celebrating afterwards.

But in keeping with trends in sports over the past two decades, there are now many more foreigners representing Malta in a number of sporting disciplines.

In Malta, we have players in our National Teams, with such names as Okoh, Nwoko and Sixsmith. Most definitely not Maltese names, but since these players have been granted Maltese citizenship they can now play for Malta.

Until recently, the Malta Olympic Committee has not utilised this provision in the rules, but with other nations, including Iceland and Cyprus, increasing the number of ‘foreigners’ playing for their country, they have now reconsidered their stance on the matter.

Chinese table-tennis players Lu Li Ping and Shen Chan started a trend, which has been followed by many more.

Scottish, David Millar, who lives in France but was born in Malta, represented our country in cycling and won the gold medal.

Tanya Blake, a UK citizen with Maltese relatives, won gold for Malta, in athletics. Nick Cutajar came all the way from Australia and went to San Marino to win a bronze in Judo. Nathalie Galea, also from down under, won a gold medal in swimming.

So how did the trend start?

In the early eighties, Malta, together with other small nations (those with a population of under 1,000,000) started discussions for a Small Nations Tournament.

After a couple of years, the International Olympic Committee gave the go-ahead for the Games of the Small States of Europe to commence and it was decided that the first event would be held in San Marino in 1985.

Participants such as San Marino and Luxembourg immediately started utilising players from nearby countries, such as Belgium and Italy under a rule that if an athlete has a relative residing in of the participating countries, he could take part in the Games. Thus, Belgian and Italian athletes, who were not of a high enough standard to represent their countries, but were good enough to participate in the Small Nations Games, were being closely monitored.

These rules are not exclusive to the Small Nations Games but also apply to the Olympic Games. For example, Fiona May, who won a medal for Great Britain in high jump, is now representing Italy after marrying an Italian and having now lived for more than five years in Italy.

Most premier and first division football teams worldwide, have at least one, and several have as many as four or more, foreign players. This is seen by some as detrimental to the advancement of their National side in international tournaments; one of the reasons that each foreign player must have relatives residing in the team’s country.

I believe it is important to set limits of the number of ‘foreign’ players allowed, but in general, I agree with a move towards globalisation in sports. But most important, money must go into nurturing the home grown talent that I have no doubt exists but which is being largely ignored.

With fewer talented youngsters entering the youth market, clubs must look elsewhere to find players of the calibre needed to create a successful team. Other countries seem to have maintained the competitive spirit in their youth and with the active participation of major clubs, and hard cash, provide an ongoing support that has created a pool of excellent young players. It makes sense, therefore, for Maltese coaches to look to this pool of talent to supplement the lack of the home trained contingent.

These ‘foreigners’ could help local sports as mentors and coaches and could start with a sports training programme for a number of disciplines, such as football, athletics, volleyball, basketball, for the winter months in schools and swimming and waterpolo for summer.

Boys and girls should train from a very early age on full sized pitches with a full sized regulation ball. The best players should then be offered better training facilities and expertise from their local clubs with active encouragement to join the junior squad and take part in competitions.

The more that clubs nurture and encourage young talent, the brighter the future of Maltese sports.