It’s clear that 2026 will be a year of changes in the Maltese sporting world, as the Authority for Integrity in Maltese Sports (AIMS) starts to fully implement matters which come under its purview.
In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, the authority’s CEO Kevin Azzopardi said that the New Year will see several changes: chiefly the introduction of licensing for sports facilities, the creation of a new sporting tribunal, and the consolidation of several bureaucratic processes that sports clubs have to go through.
It’s good first and foremost to understand that sport in Malta is much bigger than being simply football. Yes, the main football clubs on the island are among the most followed, have the most money, and nowadays are pretty much fully professional – but as Azzopardi said, there are over 400 sports clubs dotted around the country spread across a multitude of disciplines.
Azzopardi also gave an important piece of contextual information: 95% of the people involved in sports are volunteers. This means they do it because it is a passion that they enjoy dedicating their own free time to.
Giving the best and most serious sporting environment possible is not just a responsibility that the country’s authorities – from those at association level to national level – have in order to help sport improve, but it is also a duty to be done out of respect towards the volunteers who dedicate their free time to the sport.
With this in mind, the reforms that AIMS are embarking on are certainly to be seen in a positive light.
Perhaps the most underrated one for those involved in the sector is the decision to combine – and thereby lessen – the paperwork that sports organisations will need to file each year. As things stand, sports organisations must file yearly submissions with both the Office of the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations (OCVO) and the Malta Business Registry (MBR). New obligations mean that annual filings must also now be made with AIMS.
But Azzopardi said that the intention is to combine the requirements of all of these entities into one streamlined process for organisations to fill out. It is difficult to overestimate what an important measure this is and how many hours it will save volunteers – hours which can then be dedicated to other parts of their organisation.
The licensing of facilities is another important step. It is important that there is a set of standards for the country’s sporting facilities, first and foremost to ensure that they are all safe. These are facilities which welcome hundreds of people – young and old – each week and they are, by nature, high intensity environments, so the safer they are, the better.
Finally the introduction of a new Tribunal of Sport is a step forward in ensuring that there is the just treatment of everyone.
As things stand, if an athlete has been disciplined at association level and they then appeal that decision within the structures of the association, and the sentence is confirmed, athletes have no national sporting legal entity to turn to for recourse if they feel that they have suffered an injustice.
The Tribunal will fill that gap and will bring redress where it is necessary.
All in all it is good to see that AIMS is taking on the role of adding to the foundational aspects of the Maltese sporting sector. Only by strengthening its foundations can we strengthen the sector as a whole.