New Maltese referees on FIFA and futsal panels

Clayton Pisani is Malta's new international referee on the FIFA list while Franco Cachia has been placed on the Futsal international list.

These two officials joined 12 of their colleagues on Monday evening when the referees were presented with their international badges by Joe Mifsud, the president of the Malta Football Association.

When presenting the badges, Dr Mifsud reminded the refereesof their duties to be honest, vigilant and determined to do well. They must be firm but fair and never show any favour in their delicate assignments.

Dr Mifsud told them that they were chosen to form part of the pool of FIFA and futsal international referees as the MFA believed that they were the best officials of a very good upcoming crop of referees.

He urged these officials, as he has done on other occasions to the whole refereeing fraternity, that they must report any possible approach by unscrupulous people who try and make them influence the result of a match. The Malta FA is determined to root out corruption as it has proved in the last few months. It will show no mercy whoever the person may be.

The referees who were presented with the FIFA badge were Marco Borg, Chris Lautier, Pisani and Anton Zammit, while the assistant referees' badge went to Philip Agius, Konrad G.Borg, Alan Camilleri, Joseph Camilleri, Mariano Debono, Charles Micallef, Edward Spiteri and Ingmar Spiteri. Esther Azzopardi was presented with the women's FIFA badge while Cachia was awarded the futsal referees badge for the first time.

Pisani is a Physical Education teacher in state schools while Cachia is a security official at the Malta International Airport.