The Malta Tourism Authority, through the VisitMalta brand, spent €1.7 million on sponsoring a two-day football tournament in Newcastle last weekend.
While critics have deemed the latest publicly funded MTA sponsorship as a “waste of money” and the result of “cosy relationships” between top MTA officials and certain event brokers, CEO chief Carlo Micallef quashed criticism and insisted that it was money well spent when contacted by The Shift.
“The scope of this initiative was to establish a VisitMalta brand partnership with a top international tournament of football that involves teams from the core tourism source markets to Malta, whereby the participating teams are top teams from their respective countries with a strong support following and regular participation in pan-European competitions,” Micallef told The Shift News.
“The tournament was intended to serve as a marketing platform for the VisitMalta brand, destination promotion in the country where the tournament is played, as well as to generate destination promotion on TV, digital media and other media where the teams come from,” he insisted.
The MTA boss said that the government forked out €1.7 million to sponsor the Sela Cup, in which Newcastle United, Fiorentina, Villa Real and Nice fought it out in football friendlies at Newcastle’s St James Park.
But he also calculated that Malta received the equivalent of around €7 million worth of advertising if it had to pay for the TV and news coverage connected to the so-called Sela Cup.
Micallef, however, did not explain how the MTA calculated the €7 million.
Asked to explain the involvement of Q Media Sport – a Maltese company connected to Austrian football organiser Helmut Amhof and whether the MTA paid him or companies he is connected to for the initiative, Micallef said that the MTA “has no relationship with and has made no payment to Q Media.”
Amhof – who has collaborated in the past with both the Malta Football Association and MTA to bring foreign teams such as Inter, Fiorentina and the Manchester United Women’s Team to Malta with MTA sponsorships – was present at last weekend’s tournament in Newcastle and addressed the media as the tournament’s organiser with VisitMalta.
MTA CEO Carlo Micallef presenting the Sela Cup to winners Newcastle United. VisitMalta’s sponsorship of the tournament cost taxpayers €1.7 million.
The MTA has so far failed to explain its relationship with Amhof and the various companies he is associated with, including Q Media.
Q Media Sport is owned by Sharlon Pace, a property developer and Gzira FC President, and unknown investors represented by ARX Trustees Limited. The directors are former BOV Chairman Deo Scerri and Bulgarian Miroslava Dimitrova.
According to Amhof himself, he was reportedly acting as a representative of the Austria-based international sports agency SLFC in Newcastle, where he boasted of partnering with the MTA for the new Sela Cup.
Micallef made no reference to Amhof in his replies to The Shift’s questions.
Asked to state how many guests the MTA invited to Newcastle for the tournament, Micallef the VisitMalta delegation only included three members, one of whom was himself.
The Shift is informed that many other well-connected Maltese were present for the tournament, courtesy of the Tourism Ministry, including Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo himself.
While the MTA spends millions of euros a year on promoting Malta, it has been under constant criticism over its lack of transparency and the alleged sleaze and graft connected to its event sponsorships.
The current spending spree started in earnest when disgraced former minister Konrad Mizzi was responsible for tourism but it has continued unabated since.
The Shift revealed only a few weeks ago how a music festival held last year on 15 August, when Malta already has more tourists than it needs, set the public coffers back €2.7 million.
The festival, Summer Daze, is organised by a group of business people led by Trevor Camilleri of the 356 Entertainment Group and will be held once again this year with another significant MTA sponsorship.
The Tourism Ministry is so far not saying how much this year’s sponsorship will cost taxpayers.
So the CEO of an Authority answers the media himself? Doesn’t the MTA possibly have someone taking care of this!?
Meanwhile cancer patients in malta resort to begging to be given treatment.
https://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2023-08-07/local-news/PN-proposes-for-cancer-treatment-to-be-provided-entirely-by-the-State-in-order-to-avoid-bureaucracy-6736253942
YES: Unfortunately, the behavior is once again ANTI-LABOUR.
SAD: Do these UNSOCIAL SUBJECTS get away with it once again?!!
If you want quality tourism you don’t target football supporters in pubs
Welcome in New Mallorca!
Yes the ‘new Magaluf’
What quality tourism? You must be joking! Who in the right mind with Euro, Dollars to spare want to holiday on such a dump (as it is right now) of an Island! Yes we did have ‘rich’ tourists visiting our Islands, however that was in the 1960’s and very early 1970’s when Malta and Gozo were still, ‘virgin’. Go figure that!
Hallas Gahan®
Hallas Gahan® 👏 Prosit Minestra
My brother, an avid football enthusiast based in the U.K. never heard anything on the local, regional or national sports news about Maltese sponsorship or involvement.
Money down the drain. Malta need quality tourists not quantity. At the moment we are having tourists sharing meals and drinks.
Please define a ‘quality tourist’.
What’s in it for this lot? Inevitably there must be some juicy benefits.
Of course there are. Try to ask for details of who enjoyed the live games and how much more WE paid for them. You’d have to wait ad eternum for an answer.
We need details of who is benefitting from these huge expenses, and additional expenses for flights, accommodation, spending money etc. What is the scope of them attending such events? If marketing was being done in the pitch, one or two people would have sufficed, but from what we witnessed at the airport, quite a delegation attended. Apart from MTA staff, there were members of the minister’s staff including part of the Prosit Ministru customer care team – who are nowhere to be seen if you go to the ministry with a query or issue and staff from the ministry’s side.
We need to know if Finance Minister approved of such a waste of money….
PLEASE can someone give me the internet side of this tournament?
BECAUSE I haven‘t found it. Thank you so much.
Who thought up this great idea of throwing away 1.7 million on an advert in summer aimed at potential package tourists from bleeding Newcastle?
This country is highjacked by an ever growing large group of criminals, as they sit alongside our dearest unscrupulous politicians in Government, like a big clan of mafiosi. There is no more control and power has gone down to the streets, with many opportunists making hay while the sun shines. In general, the common people are very resilient, adapt to new realities and suffer in silence, but there is also one intetesting fact to not discard, as when there is nothing more to lose, these same people may turn into ferocious rats and become capable to do atrocious things. Unfortunately, I can see only one scenario to get rid of this highly corrupt lot and the end of all this might be very disturbing. Democracy has gone to the dogs, and my concern is that one day our people will make justice with their own hands. A very troubling end indeed.
I doubt such is the case. As my dearly departed father once told me… Whilst having a chit chat with a high ranking British Army Official back in the late 1940’s, arguing on Malta’s future within the then British Empire. This officer blatantly stated to my dad after some heavy drinking, that the majority of the Maltese population were spineless goats… “Dangle some ‘hay’ and ‘grain’ to such ‘goats’ and they happily bow their heads to their ‘masters’.
Roll on the years, 68/78 years later such unfortunate foresight has reared it’s head again. This time however we don’t call the majority of the Maltese, goats, we now simply call them, Gahan Malti!
This guy was generalizing as the population have eyes to see and can use their brains when they want to . PL always want people to remain uneducated and in want of basic things as they can manipulate and feed them what they want and at times they hand out a cheque to buy these poor fools . If we remain in this sad situation we will have a brain drain as many are leaving our country as they see no future what so ever
Dan kollu biex inkomplu nzidu mal-qlafat ta’ turisti zaghzagh storbjuzi, arroganti, bsatas, u tal-qamel li ghandna ma’ saqajna, jdejqulna kull m’ghandna.
FLUS FIL-HELA LI JISTGHU JINTUZAW BIEX NGHINU L-HUTNA LI QED JISTAGHNEW FIL-FAQAR, SUR MINISTRU BARTOLO.
MLP= money no problem.
Can one of his minions tell the clown in the middle to wipe that smirk off his face before posting the usual prosit minestru and minestra comment
Don’t bother cause he’s a tosser!
What a tosser! Where is Minister of Finance Clyde Caruana? Has he approved of such?