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The behind the scenes to offer the best game experiences

Published: 07-10-2021 02:45
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Football games are the heart and soul of the Association.  The Association’s corridors start buzzing with activity as the season starts and more so when national team commitments are approaching.  For the fans, a game means buying a ticket, cheering your team and going home happy or sad depending on the game result.  Post match comments and discussions mostly concentrate on the match itself.  However little do people know that organising one single game brings with it a deal of preparation.  Most of the time, the media emphasizes on the playing part of a particular game. It focuses on the work of the coach, on the training sessions and on the individual players and their performance and the result. However one has to understand that a great deal of work happens behind the scenes  Work which we rarely see. In fact we often pay attention to these things only when the media decides to focus on it and most of the time the emphasis is a negative one. One of the factors that is most of the time taken for granted is the state of the pitch. Day in, day out there is a dedicated team whose well defined role is to keep the playing surface area in pristine shape. This is not only done before an international game but is a job that continues throughout the 12 months of the year. A team of specially trained workers ensure that the playing surface area is in a good position to host a football match. Adjacent, one finds the stands. As one can visually see even if he looks at the colours,  the Estate Management Division continued with the cleaning of the stadium seats. This started more than a month ago and takes long hours.  It was estimated that this rigorous cleaning took 1987 hours of man power.  Cleaning is done using a special method and each seat must be cleaned individually. A total of 12,418 were thoroughly cleaned and 80% of the job was carried out by Malta FA staff. The pandemic brought about major changes. Changes and restrictions we had to adapt to. The Association had a number of regulations that were imposed on it, which changed day to day normal practices that had been in place for a long time. Maltese stadia were empty for several months, due to the restrictions imposed. As soon as the doors were reopened to the supporters, ticket sales had to be done online to minimize physical contact between people. To do this, the Association needed to build a system from scratch to meet the public demand. This meant a radical change in the way tickets were sold. A change that was welcomed by the public who even if they could not physically buy the ticket, is seeing what he can do to get it.The aim of this article is to skim through practices that have changed and give space to others that are normally sidelined. Preparations that go beyond the game of football, but that are very much needed.  It is indeed a pleasure to welcom supporters to the game, especially during international matches whose aim is to unite us as a country.  On the eve of another international commitment, the Malta FA hopes to see the stadium filled to the maximum capacity (based on Covid-19 restrictions).  If you haven't yet aquired your tickets, there are a few remaining in North Stand only as the other sectors are full up.  Tickets can be purchased from tickets.mfa.com.mt