The Maltese football leagues system of association football is made up of a set of leagues organised and controlled by the Malta Football Association. Malta has had a top level football division since 1909, it continues on today with the current system.
Contents
Old system
Currently the system includes 4 tiers. All of the leagues are currently sponsored by Bank of Valletta:
Premier League
The Maltese Premier League is probably most criticised for a format that is similar to that of the Scottish Premier League, where the league is split up into two phases, a first one with two rounds (home and away – formally, since the league is played within 3 or 4 stadiums only), and the second phase accommodates a split of the 12 teams into a Championship Pool (top 6 teams) and the Relegation Pool (bottom 6 teams). Also, a particular characteristic of the Maltese Premier League is that once the split takes place, the points gathered in the previous two rounds, are halved, supposedly to create more competition.
Other competitions
In parallel to these leagues run a number of Knock Out competitions, the most prominent one being the FA Trophy.
Current Format
On January 13, 2011, the Malta Football Association decided to restructure the format of the leagues as from season 2011–12.
Thus the system in force from season 2011–12 came to read:
Future Format
Once again, the Malta Football Association decided to restructure the format of the leagues. As from season 2017/18, the Maltese Premier League will have 14 clubs competing at the top level of Maltese football. For the first time in decades, the Maltese Premier League will have 2 rounds, each team playing the other twice, and will not split the points in half at any stage.
2017/2018-Future
Thus in season 2017/18, the format will be as follows:
The main noticeable change in format is the introduction of a promotion-relegation play-off that will take place across all the leagues in Malta. The 12th place team in each league will play a one match decider at a neutral ground against the team that finishes in 3rd place of the lower league. The winner of the decider will take its place in the higher league in the following season.
There are still hopes in the future that Gozitan clubs from the Gozo Football League First Division and the Gozo Football League Second Division may enter the Maltese Leagues and create a single competition for all the Maltese Islands and give the Gozitan teams the opportunity to compete in European competitions. There are also discussions going on over a potential re-structuring of the amateur football leagues in Malta and create a pyramid system as opposed to a series of single leagues.