Big trouble in little Xgħajra: Mayor and football club president go head-to-head

Trouble is brewing in Xgħajra with the locality’s football club president reporting Mayor Neil Attard to the police after the latter “unlawfully” padlocked the club facilities.

Gordon Shephard, president of Xgħajra Tornados FC, claimed that access to the sports facility was blocked between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

Speaking to MaltaToday, Shephard said that on Tuesday at around 10:30am, committee officials visited the club’s premises only to find a brand-new padlock on the door.

The day before, the contract with the person managing the bar had reached its end.

“Everything went well and the necessary monies were paid,” Shephard said. But on Tuesday morning, committee officials visited the premises to see what needed fixing so that the bar could get operational once again.

Shephard said the football club committee at first had no clue who had done this, and proceeded to file a police report.

But on Wednesday afternoon, on club and nursery emails, officials received a message from the locality’s mayor, Neil Attard, who admitted to putting on the new padlock “to ensure no abuse is carried out.”

In the email, seen by MaltaToday, the mayor said he felt “he had to” intervene as the person who used to operate the bar, no longer did.

“As mayor, and because the land belongs to government and the Lands Authority, and now who managed the bar has left, I had to intervene on behalf of the Local Council,” the email reads.

In comments to this newspaper, Attard insisted access to the facilities was not blocked and the new padlock was put on in good faith.

“So much so, Raymond Camilleri, who manages the nursery, was given keys to carry out training sessions on Thursday,” the mayor said.

Nonetheless, the club president said he was not aware Camilleri had been granted access, insisting the mayor still had no right to intervene in the way he did.

Camilleri later called the MaltaToday newsroom to confirm he had been handed over the keys by the mayor. He also confirmed the club’s president or committee were not informed, saying the “president never visits us here”.

Questioned on whether the council’s approval was sought before the padlock was changed, Attard said it was not. The mayor insisted he does not need the council’s approval for emergency interventions. “It’s like when a railing breaks,” he said.

A tornado of claims

But club president Gordon Shephard said the conflict was over a dispute on the land around the football ground. The ground is owned by the club but the areas in its immediate vicinity, including where the clubhouse is situated are not.

These lands around the football ground are currently owned by the Lands Authority and had until 2022 been owned by the local council. Shephard said the club is currently in talks with SportMalta to initiate the process of handing over the land for sport commercialisation purposes.

The mayor confirmed the land is public, but said the council would be applying to have government devolve the land back to it.

He even claimed that in a meeting with Lands Department, he had been told the land “could never be transferred to SportMalta.”

On his part, the Xgħajra Tornados FC president said Education Minster Clifton Grima had told him in a separate meeting that he believed the club should own the land.

Meanwhile, the Xgħajra mayor insisted that Shephard’s time as president “has been a complete disaster”. Attard said the area is unkept and dilapidated. Shephard rebutted, adding the area was notorious for illegal waste dumping and the situation had persisted despite police reports.

The mayor also claimed the president was allowing players to illegally reside at a separate facility close to the one which saw the dispute boil over. He claimed the council was paying the water and electricity bills on this property. A report was filed with the police by the mayor shortly after he was contacted by the newspaper.

The claims of unpaid bills were denied by Shephard, who, however, confirmed that a certain individual “sometimes sleeps there and sometimes sleeps at his own residence.”

“At the end of the day, it’s not up to the mayor to decide and it’s not his jurisdiction,” Shephard insisted.

Claims by Attard that the club’s president had carried out illegal alterations on this premises, were also denied by Shephard.