Plans for Malta to host 'large, international sports events' next year

Malta intends to host a number of large, international sports events next year to coincide with its accession to the EU presidency, Sports Malta's acting chief executive Mark Cutajar announced.

"We intend to host large-scale sports events next year and now it's up to you to use your international contacts to help us fulfill this goal," Cutajar told a room of representatives from Maltese sports organisations.

He was speaking at an event at the Cottonera Sports Complex in which Sports Malta reimbursed 33 sports organisations for schemes carried out in the final quarter of 2015. These included ten sports tourism events, in which professional foreign athletes were brought over to Malta.

A total of €300,000 was spent on these schemes, bringing the total expenditure for 2015 to around €1 million.

In his speech, parliamentary secretary for sports Chris Agius said that the government wants Maltese athletes to be more internationally competitive and sports organisations to be more commercially viable.

Indeed, he announced the launch of a public consultation process in the coming weeks on a legal reform to "commercialize sports facilities".

"We dont want sports associations to be reliant on charity, but rather for them to be self-sustainable."

He also said that he intends to render the Malta Paralympics Committee more "organised and structured" so as to encourage more youth with physical disabilities to take up a sport.