Jurgen Borg is a 23 year old goalkeeper ex-U/21 international. Jurgen has not played for the past 3 months.

June 2014 - Jurgen Borg signs a part-time 5 year contract with Hibernians F.C. Contract set to expire at the end of season 2018/19. Last season Jurgen was on loan with Gzira United F.C.

July 2017 - Jurgen asks the club to be allowed to join another club on loan. Obviously compensation must be paid. The club informs the player that he would be allowed to go on loan ONLY IF he extends his contract with them. Jurgen refuses to sign extension and is not selected to form part of the squad who participated in the Champions League qualifiers.
At this point the player had the following options:
1) To agree to the extension but face this same situation next year and most probably for all his football career.
2) To refuse to sign the extension and not play for the remaining 2 years on his contract.
3) To terminate the employment contract early and face potential damages.

1st August 2017 - Jurgen opted for option 3 and terminated the contract with the club. A request was made to the MFA Executive committee asking permission to register with another club. At that time the player was ready to pay the financial damages for terminating the contract early. The standard practice at FIFA is that the remaining salaries i.e. the residual value of the contract is paid. Therefore Jurgen was willing to pay the club approx. 22 months salaries (August 2017 - May 2019). On top of this a transfer fee of approx. 10000 euros had to be paid.

It is worth mentioning that in the multitude of identical cases heard at FIFA and CAS (Court For Arbitration Of Sport) ALL players who have sought permission to register with a new club were granted permission and did not have to pay a transfer fee as this exists only in Malta. Unfortunately the MFA Executive committee felt that they should not take a decision. It instead sent the case to the MFA Complaints Board.

30th August 2017- Complaints Board decided that they have no jurisdiction to decide on matters of registration and sent back the case to the Executive Committee.

14th September 2017 - Executive committee discussed once again the matter and decided not to give permission to the player to sign with another club.
The player at this point cannot take the matter to the Maltese Law courts as players are precluded from taking civil or criminal legal action against a decision of an MFA board.

18th September 2017 - An appeal at the Court Of Arbitration For Sport in Lausanne Switzerland is filed.
It is also worth noting that a non-Maltese player playing in Malta would have had the possibility to file the case with FIFA and therefore he would have been given permission to sign with another club.
MFPA will go all the way to seek justice. Players in Malta shouldn't be treated any different than other players playing abroad or even non-Maltese playing in Malta. We are no different.

Jurgen is currently being provided training and coaching facilities by the Malta Football Players Association and will keep supporting the player until he is back on the pitch doing what he loves most.
#wearenodifferent #MaltesePlayersBeingDiscriminated