Team Malta at Paris Olympics has more officials than athletes

Team Malta – as the Maltese contingent representing the island at the ongoing Paris Olympics has been dubbed by the Maltese Olympic Committee (MOC) – is gaining some unwanted attention from different sports associations, not because of results but because the team has more officials than athletes.

Malta’s representation in the actual games is strikingly low this year, with only five athletes in four disciplines: shooting, judo, athletics, and swimming. However, the delegation includes eight officials, all members of the MOC’s executive committee.

The last time Malta had only five athletes was in the 2012 London Games.

Nigel Mc Carthy is the only executive member of the MOC who is not spending weeks in Paris, courtesy of the Maltese taxpayer. The rest of the committee members have somehow found a role in Team Malta to be physically present at the games.

These are President Julian Pace Bonello, Secretary General Kevin Azzopardi, Deputy President Paul Sultana in the role of chef de mission, Director of Sport Charlene Attard, Media Director Maria Vella Galea, and another two members, David Azzopardi and Johanna Grech, whose role in Paris is undefined.

In addition, another MOC executive member, Lucianne Attard, was put on the medical team of the contingent so that she could also be present for the Paris Games.

“This is a very top-heavy contingent made up of more MOC committee members than actual athletes,” a member of a top local association told The Shift.

“Instead of trying to widen Malta’s participation in more disciplines and get more athletes to Paris, we have the ridiculous situation of too many captains and not enough crew in what should be a top sporting event,” a former MOC committee member said.

Most of the funds used by the MOC to finance Team Malta’s participation at the Paris Games are from state coffers, including a €5 million grant issued by the NSDF in 2023 from the cash-for-passports scheme supposedly to prepare Maltese athletes for the games.

Sources close to the MOC conceded that while it was true that Team Malta was too heavy on the officials’ side, this is not the first time that such things have happened.

Polemics on Malta’s delegations to the Olympic games are not new.

In 2008, when the games were held in Beijing, China, Parliamentary Secretary Clyde Puli hit the headlines for spending 16 days at the Chinese games, touring venues together with members of his family.

At the time, the parliamentary secretary had justified his long presence at the games by saying he was there to support Maltese athletes. He had also insisted that the costs related to his wife and son were paid through private funds.

Prime Minister Robert Abela and his wife Lydia also took the opportunity to fly to Paris for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics last Friday. They were invited by French President Emmanuel Macron and the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach.