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My New Year’s resolution has been set: I shall never be involved in any way whatsoever with amateurish football clubs. Having been involved for four months in the administration of Sta Lucia FC as their team manager and official committee member, today I can say publicly that I have learnt the lesson!
Way back in August of last year, media.link communications had accepted to join forces for the reality show Net Stars with Sta Lucia FC being a third division club competing in the MFA national league. The picture that was portrayed to me as one of the producers of the show was that the club was ready to collaborate fully for the benefit of both the club and the TV show Net Stars.
The so-called old boys at the club never welcomed me because I was an obvious threat to them personally and to the general administration of the club. Being myself a sports journalist they always were afraid of me because I had in hand, according to them, the power of the media. I could immediately realise that!
Everything was a deep mystery. The way the committee meetings were held was like something that had to be done by force. No enthusiasm at all. The president of the club Dr Victor Scerri, who ironically is also the Nationalist Party’s president, had very irregular attendance. But the old Sta Lucia boys saw him as the saviour of the club for them because he had forked out some Lm700 to pay an outstanding bill due to the Malta Football Association before the league commenced. If this bill had not been paid by the stipulated ultimatum, the club would have been stopped from participating in this season.
“What poor administration,” I would tell myself. I was there, I was part of them, I was the team’s manager, I was still helping, I was still struggling to get some funds for the club. Many people used to tell me: “you are mad working with that club, haven’t you done some research about their past?” Being a TV presenter and also producing the TV show every week in which the Sta Lucia FC players were being featured, I used to think that people especially from the local football industry were jealous and I thought their criticism towards my decision to join forces with Sta Lucia at the beginning of the season was just pure hatred because I did not choose their club for this venture.
They were right and I was wrong! It was a purely silly decision to mess with Sta Lucia FC. After three long months of tension and hard work I was even abused physically and verbally by a committee member in front of all the players during a training session and it was then that I decided to call it a day. I was threatened physically just because I wanted to be informed beforehand that a players’ meeting was being organised. Being the team manager I had the right to be informed but it seems that it’s not the practice of amateur clubs to respect people who have the same rights as them.
From this bitter experience I have learnt the lesson: “never mess with amateur football clubs otherwise they will mess you up.”
Sandro Micallef
Fgura
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