Confusion reigns over scheme to commercialise sports facilities

Confusion is currently reigning in the management of sports facilities, particularly among football clubs, which are filing Planning Authority applications to turn their grounds into fully-fledged commercial enterprises.

But they are doing so without the required authorisation to do so from both the government and Parliament.

The Shift recently reported how Education Minister Clifton Grima warned Hamrun Spartans’ on-and-off president, and erstwhile construction magnate, Joseph Portelli about plans he had already announced to turn the Spartans’ ground into a commercial centre including shops and a supermarket.

Addressing a recent parliamentary committee, Grima made it clear that any such plans would have to be approved first by the Commercialisation of Sports Facilities Committee that he established, and, after that, by Parliament.  Grima insisted that none of this has happened yet and that Portelli would have to put the brakes on his plans and wait in the queue.

The Shift is informed that another case, which is at an even more advanced stage than Portelli’s Hamrun project, is evolving in Marsaxlokk.

Although a permit has not yet been issued by the ministry’s commercialisation committee, and Parliament has not been informed of any plans, the locality’s football club has filed a development application to turn its ground – as well as an adjacent public car park and garden – into a massive area for commercial activity.

According to the plans filed with the PA, the ground will be engulfed by an old people’s home, a hostel and a childcare centre, among others.

Asked recently in Parliament by Opposition MP Darren Carabott to state whether the Marsaxlokk plans are covered by any sort of permit from the government, Minister Grima confirmed that they are not.

“Marsaxlokk applied in 2021 for the commercialisation of their facilities and at the moment a process of analyses and valuation is taking place,” Grima told Carabott.

Still, the PA is about to approve the Marsaxlokk project, which is being opposed by hundreds of residents because of its expected negative impact on the surrounding area.

Even the Malta Developers Association had opposed the plans as some of its members who have old people’s homes and other businesses in the area have complained of unfair competition.

What is happening in Marsaxlokk, however, appears to merely be the tip of the iceberg. The Shift is informed that many clubs have already entered into agreements with supermarket chains, hoteliers and developers to build commercial facilities without even having a title on the public land.

They have done so because ministers have promised clubs that they will be allowed to commercialise their facilities but the clubs are now finding they will have to wait a long time for the plans to come to fruition, if at all.

Asked to say how many applications are currently being considered by the Commercialisation of Sports Facilities Committee, headed by criminologist and university lecturer Saviour Formosa, Minister Clifton Grima did not reply.

Parliament is in the meantime expected to approve more clubs being given title over their facilities in the near future, with the next in line being the Xewkija and Gudja football clubs and the Otters Waterpolo club in Marsalforn.