Top Executive Programme meeting in Malta

 As one of 54member associations within UEFA, Malta has hosted several UEFA events including a UEFA Congress and two Executive Committee meetings over recent years. The latest UEFA event to be held in Malta was in May 2014 when the UEFA European Under 17 Championship was held.  Another event currently being staged in the Mediterranean island is the  meeting of high-ranking officials from all European national associations better known as the Top Executive Programme (TEP). The programme is devised on football development and supports top executives in their decision-making functions. Through this initiative there have been several landmark decisions dealing particulary with the re-shaping of the national teams’ competitions. These include the extension from 16 to 24 nations as from next year of the UEFA European Football Championship, the centralisation of the media rights of national teams qualification matches and the staging of the European Championship in the 2020 final tournament in various major cities. There is also another novelty that envisages a UEFA Nations League starting in 2018. This will do away with several friendly matches, with the teams being divided in categories according to a performance co-efficient and competing in four leagues. As is usual, the current Top Executive Programme meeting in Malta is operating in small discussion groups and provides a platform for feedback on the follow-up of previous round table TEP discussions.