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The Maltese Herald

360Sports Malta Premier reaches end of first round

—

by

Gerald Fenech
in

As the much-vaunted revamp of the local 360Sports Malta Premier League continues to play out, it would be useful to analyze how the league will develop.

The Opening Round – League Phase has reached its final stretch and teams are on the brink of splitting into the Opening Round Top Six and Bottom Six brackets. Unlike traditional leagues, this division won’t lead to championship or relegation pools, but instead launches a new phase in which teams will carry over their current points and compete until the end of 2024 to determine their standings.

What happens when teams are tied on points

In cases where teams are tied on points, the standings will hinge on a carefully structured tiebreak system. Head-to-head results will take priority, with the team winning the direct encounter in the Opening Round receiving the advantage. If that matchup ended in a draw, the next factor will be goal difference. Should the goal difference also match, the total goals scored across the entire Opening Round will serve as the final decider.

To illustrate, Floriana and Hibernians are neck and neck in second and third with 20 points each. Their head-to-head ended in a 1-1 draw, so goal difference becomes the next deciding factor. If their goal differences are also identical–say, 18-7 and 20-9–the team with more goals scored overall will secure the higher position.

360Sports Malta Premier – The Closing Round

Once this phase concludes, the League will progress to the Closing Round in early 2025. Here, all teams will reset to zero points and face off in an 11-match series reminiscent of the Opening Round format. Final rankings in each stage will then be determined through the following criteria:

  1. Highest points in direct encounters.
  2. Superior goal difference in direct encounters if points are equal.
  3. Total goals scored in direct encounters if previous tiebreaks are still equal.
  4. Overall goal difference in the League if direct encounters remain deadlocked.
  5. Highest goals scored in the League.
  6. If all else fails, the ultimate tiebreaker: a random draw.

These rules will govern placements for both the Opening Round Top Six & Bottom Six set for November/December 2024, as well as the Closing Round Top Six & Bottom Six from April to May 2025. The stage is set for a thrilling conclusion as teams strive to secure their positions in a league format designed to reward performance at every level.

Comments

4 responses to “360Sports Malta Premier reaches end of first round”

  1. Banquo avatar
    Banquo

    The Americas have notoriously complex, multi-phase football league systems, divided into apertura and clausura formats, and it seems that Malta has decided to copy this.

    What are the benefits? Casual fans, which the Malta Football Association should be seeking to attract to its stadia, are more likely to switch off if they cannot understand the system.

    Far better and easier to follow is a system in which all teams in a league play against each other, with no splits in the league table, no phases and no separate rounds. This is how the English Premier League, the La Liga and all major leagues in Europe do it.

    If the problem is that playing twice against each other would result in too few games because Malta’s league only has 12 teams, the solution is to have all teams play three times against each other (this is what South Korea, whose league also has 12 teams, does).

    This would result in each team playing a total of 33 games, which is only one short of the Bundesliga’s 34, but still more than Argentina’s 27. For comparison, in the English Premier League and Serie A, teams play 38 games each.

    Somehow, with its bewildering system of league within a league, Maltese teams will still be playing less than 33 games total. A system of all teams in the league playing three times against each other for a season is neat, simple and results in a respectable number of games. One can only hope that the new format will be replaced with my proposal.

    Reply
    1. Gerald Fenech avatar
      Gerald Fenech

      Thanks for your comment. It would be useful if we started a debate on this issue.

      Reply
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