Malta v England

Quoted from mimma

Town were minnows against Southampton

And we had to qualify by winning four matches to play them.

Quoted from horsforthmariner

I do want to watch it - I love watching England. I’d prefer however if there were more competitive matches. There’s a limited amount of space for international matches so why are we wasting some of this precious time on matches that are so obviously uneven? If we had prequalifying we could have more interesting groups maybe with 3 qualification places.

Every country within the FIFA umbrella has a right to compete for its showpiece 4 yearly event. Would you like more selection with the FA Cup so that " minnows" like Grimsby Town don't meet much higher ranked teams until the much later stages? It's the fact that these "minnows" get the chance to play and compete against much higher ranked teams that makes it exciting, interesting with the possibility of an upset.

Quoted from rancido

Every country within the FIFA umbrella has a right to compete for its showpiece 4 yearly event. Would you like more selection with the FA Cup so that " minnows" like Grimsby Town don't meet much higher ranked teams until the much later stages? It's the fact that these "minnows" get the chance to play and compete against much higher ranked teams that makes it exciting, interesting with the possibility of an upset.

Grimsby aren’t really the minnows in the scenario. They are the 83rd best side in the EFL. Malta are ranked the 177th side in international football. I’m talking about some rubbish non league side like Worksop Town, Whitby Town or Scunthorpe United. And yeah I think it would devalue the FA Cup if all of EFL 92 were put in the competition at the fifth qualification round and we had all the premier league battering going to shoddy stadia like Glanford park and beating them 12-0. However, I like the fact in the FA cup that every team has the theoretic chance of winning the FA cup - but it’s right that every club has to show that they can compete against their peers then the teams just above before they get a shot at a dream tie.

I’m not suggesting there isn’t pre qualifying. I just think it would be better for everyone of Malta had to play and beat the likes of Andorra, San Marino etc to qualify so we had less mismatches in international football. If we had less boring games like England Malta maybe we would have time to play interesting friendlies against top ranked teams.

I think the issue here is that it is only the visits of the bigger international teams that keep the smaller associations afloat. Without England and Italy filling the stadium when they visit during this set of qualifiers, would the Maltese FA struggle?

I think there has been talk of separate qualifiers for the weaker nations in the past, but I can't see it ever happening.

Quoted from Maringer

I think the issue here is that it is only the visits of the bigger international teams that keep the smaller associations afloat. Without England and Italy filling the stadium when they visit during this set of qualifiers, would the Maltese FA struggle?

I think there has been talk of separate qualifiers for the weaker nations in the past, but I can't see it ever happening.

But, if one of them is getting to a EURO tournament and a World Cup then surely that more than covers whatever they get from getting trounced by a big team?

It might more than cover it for the lucky FA. What about the rest of them?

Quoted from Maringer

It might more than cover it for the lucky FA. What about the rest of them?

The Maltese FA earn about €9m per annum and in their 2022 statement, that comprised of:

€100k in international gate receipts compared to €786k in local gate receipts.
€623k in sponsorship.
€2m in TV rights.
€1.15m for UEFA participation.
€1.22m FIFA Financial Assistance.
€1.5m in UEFA solidarity payments.

Those figures are fairly similar going back to 2019, although in 2021 their UEFA participation income was €65k with no gate receipts due to the pandemic, but it suggests they don't particularly need the big teams.

Getting to the World Cup or EUROs brings in huge rewards and would enable development, pushing them up the rankings and demoting another team in there.

The likes of Luxembourg and San Marino are more likely to shïthouse a narrow victory and actually develop against Malta or Andorra than they are getting run ragged by England, France, Italy and Spain.

I'd imagine TV rights payments would be negligible without the big boys visiting. You aren't going to get many people interested in Malta vs Liechtenstein. Or how about San Marino vs Andorra (combined population lower than Grimsby)?

I think that having the 'minnows' competing is only fair so don't have too many problems with the games, even if many of them are a huge mismatch.

Quoted from horsforthmariner

Grimsby aren’t really the minnows in the scenario. They are the 83rd best side in the EFL. Malta are ranked the 177th side in international football. I’m talking about some rubbish non league side like Worksop Town, Whitby Town or Scunthorpe United. And yeah I think it would devalue the FA Cup if all of EFL 92 were put in the competition at the fifth qualification round and we had all the premier league battering going to shoddy stadia like Glanford park and beating them 12-0. However, I like the fact in the FA cup that every team has the theoretic chance of winning the FA cup - but it’s right that every club has to show that they can compete against their peers then the teams just above before they get a shot at a dream tie.

I’m not suggesting there isn’t pre qualifying. I just think it would be better for everyone of Malta had to play and beat the likes of Andorra, San Marino etc to qualify so we had less mismatches in international football. If we had less boring games like England Malta maybe we would have time to play interesting friendlies against top ranked teams.

I am doffing my hat to you for sneaking Scunny in at the end of 'some rubbish non league side...'

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