First edition of the Malta Soccer Trophy 40+ starts today

What began as a project of support for the Malta Tourist Association during the winter months, has now developed into an International sporting event for Senior footballers of 40 years plus.

It is a sort of Champions league for former professional and amateur footballers, who still practice the game with unabated passion, week after week.

Ten teams from Malta, Switzerland and Germany will participate in a tournament from today to Sunday, to clinch the very first Malta Soccer Trophy 40+ championship.

The best 6 teams in the qualifying League phase will progress to the Knock-Out Rounds, with the two best teams qualifying for the big final while the runnersup will contest the match for the 3rd and 4th place.

The home team will be made up of a selection of the best Maltese footballers in this age group, a national team selection of Maltese football veterans.

The Swiss representation, Old Boys Basel, is endowed with a number of ex.-professional footballers while Germany is represented by a number of top 40+ Teams, like SG Hoechst Classique, VfR Aalen and VfB Giessen, which are all the Crème de la Crème of International Oldie Football.

Even the other participating teams can boast of a number of league and tournament successes so are also credible and noteworthy opponents.

The Malta Football Association, the Malta Football Masters are supporters of this tournament, together with the Malta Tourism Authority and Maltese Secretariat for Sport.

The largest sports publications in Germany, ‘Kicker’ and ‘Sport Bild’, have had announcements for this tournament and will be following its progress.

When the tournament kicks off, we will be counting on the spectacle being covered by the local TV stations and the major highlight will be the participation of top former Fifa referee, Bernd Heynemann, who will be directing some of the preliminary games as well as the finals.

A special meeting with the local referees is being planned where he will be narrating his experiences in the top competitions of the football world.

However the main protagonists of this and future tournaments will be the around 4,000 European senior football teams with around 50,000-70,000 active footballers. A number of teams have already booked for the next Malta tournament in 2018.

The organizers hope to reach more than a million contacts of the targeted audience by the time of the first kick off. A number of foreign and local journalists are definitely expected to be reporting on the results of the tournament in the daily press and periodicals. Team taking part Malta 40+ National-Team (Malta – national team of football veterans)

BSC Old Boys Basel ( 40+ First Divison Basel – Ex-Profis Switzerland:)

VfR Aalen (Tradition team of the former 2.Bundesliga team with Ex-Profis)

SG Hoechst Classique (3 x German runners up, 3 x South German champion, 6 x Hesse football champion) leading-team on the German veterans 40+ ranking list

TSV Reinbek / Hamburg (North German football champion, regular Association champion – Region Hamburg )

VfB Giessen ( Tradition rich team with a number of Ex-Profis und former Oberliga /3.Liga footballers)

TSV 1880 Wasserburg (Over 40+ Regional champion – Upper Bavaria )

SV Lichtenberg 47 (A top team of League Association -Region Berlin - 40+ Premier league)

DJK Schwabsberg-Buch (from Baden Wuerttemberg – already played against a Maltese 40+ selection in 2015)

FSV Hailer (Hesse – Regional Cup participation - Main-KinzigKreis)