Swieqi United FC recently presented policy recommendations for a national Talent Identification Framework (TIF) for sport in Malta to the Hon. Graham Bencini, Shadow Minister for Sport, at Parliament in Valletta.

The recommendations come from GOAL – Growing Outstanding Athletic Leaders, an Erasmus+ Sport Small-scale Collaborative Partnership co-funded by the European Union (Grant Agreement No. 101245308). Swieqi United FC (Malta) leads the project in partnership with HAN University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands) and Union Plaani (Finland).

GOAL’s starting point is that Malta does not yet have a structured system for identifying and developing young sporting talent. Selection often depends on informal, club-level judgement. In a small island state with a limited talent pool, every young athlete who is overlooked or released too early is a loss to the national sport system.

The policy paper sets out 12 recommendations for Malta and 8 for the European Commission. It proposes a framework that: assesses future potential as well as current performance, so that early physical maturity does not decide who gets selected, addresses the relative age effect and differences in growth and maturation, which can disadvantage later-developing children, uses longitudinal tracking, performance profiles and objective observation tools alongside coaches’ judgement, trains coaches and scouts to recognise and reduce bias, and adds nutrition education and builds in athlete wellbeing, safeguarding, gender equity and data protection from the start.

Football is the pilot sport, but the recommended framework should serve as a blueprint that other sports in Malta can adapt. The recommendations draw on international research on talent identification in emerging football nations, and on Dutch and Finnish practice. They are adapted to Malta’s scale and resources rather than copied from larger countries.

The recommendations also call for stronger links between schools, clubs and national sport bodies, so that talent is not missed simply because a child is not yet part of a club academy. Building on this, Swieqi United FC believes that physical education teachers should be involved in the framework and trained to recognise potential and to guide young people towards the right pathway.

Dr Justin Fenech, President of Swieqi United FC, said: “These recommendations are the outcome of an EU-funded project, and they show what European cooperation can bring to Maltese sport. Through GOAL, we are investing in education in sport: better-trained coaches and scouts, better use of data driven evidence, and better decisions about young players’ futures. I believe sport is the third pillar of society, after health and education. If we want it to play that role, we need fair, structured and long-term ways of recognising and developing talent, so that no child is left behind simply because they matured later or never caught the right person’s eye.”

The Hon. Graham Bencini, Shadow Minister for Sport, welcomed the initiative. He said: “I welcome this initiative and recognise the forward thinking shown by Swieqi United Football Club. This is a club that looks beyond its own borders, learns from European partners and challenges the status quo, pushing for greater equity in sport and for sport to be given the priority it deserves for the wellbeing of society.”

Swieqi United FC has also requested meetings with the Minister for Education and Sport, the Hon. Byron Camilleri, and with the Malta Football Association. The club looks forward to presenting the initiative to both and to working together to take the recommended framework forward at national level.