Government silent on costs of new Visit Malta Cup in London

Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo and Malta Tourism Authority CEO Carlo Micallef refuse to divulge details on the cost of sponsoring an international football match in London in August between Tottenham Hotspurs and Bayern Munich.

The Shift has been informed that the friendly match, to be played at White Hart Lane stadium and dubbed the Visit Malta Cup, was fully sponsored by Malta as part of a new marketing initiative.

The match will take place just a week before the start of the English Premier League.

Questions sent to the Malta Tourism Authority on the amount spent and the impact expected from such a marketing effort were not answered.

Minister Bartolo or Micallef also declined to confirm that the MTA sponsorship was not negotiated directly with the clubs involved but passed through a foreign agent close to the MTA’s top brass, who made a significant cut in commissions on the sponsorship deal.

The Malta Tourism Authority’s latest initiative is the second related to international football. Last year, the MTA spent €1.7 million to sponsor the Sela Cup, a weekend football tournament played at Newcastle’s St James Park.

Held last summer, the tournament hosted friendly matches between Newcastle, Italy’s Fiorentina, Spain’s Villa Real and France’s Nice.

According to Carlo Micallef, who attended the games with his family, the tournament served as a marketing platform for the Visit Malta brand and was ‘a complete success’.

The Malta Tourism Authority has also been sponsoring Manchester United for years.

Struck when disgraced former Minister Konrad Mizzi headed the tourism ministry, the three-year multi-million-euro deal was renewed for another five years by his successor Clayton Bartolo, a big fan of the club.

The government has refused to divulge the costs of the Manchester United deal, estimated to cost taxpayers millions a year.