by The Assikura Women’s Youth League will open the 25/26 domestic women’s season in Malta featuring a double-header at the Centenary Stadium this evening. The competition will feature a restructuring in format and a lift in the age bracket to U21, with a heavy spotlight on the impacts in improving the development and league competitiveness in Malta’s women’s game.
Change In Structure & Age Bracket In Attempt To Inject Life Into Stage
The Assikura Women’s Youth League will be the one to ignite the 2025/26 women’s game in Malta this evening. A league that is the vehicle between the U16 and the senior league, it is a competition that is often in the spotlight for its potential to form talents from the Maltese islands, but also one that has repeatedly exposed the challenges hampering the development of youth prospects.
This season the competition will shrink to six teams, much like the senior competition, from the seven teams that competed last season. There are some changes as SK Lija and Mtarfa drop from the game, replaced only by the combined outfit of Lija-Mgarr.
The eligibility for the league has been changed to an U21 age bracket, which brings it back up since the reduction to U19 in the 2023/24 season. The competition will also return to a round-robin format, featuring four rounds without any splits in the table.
A limit has been imposed on the minutes players are allowed to play between leagues in a single matchweek to 135 minutes. This is in response to the calls to implement structures to avoid overexerting players which is an issue that has plagued the discussions in football in Malta for some years.
The matchdays remain unchanged, with the competition retaining the slots on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. As for the venues, the competition will continue to be played between the Centenary Stadium, the Charles Abela Stadium and Mgarr Ground, featuring no foreseeable changes from last season.
Teams
Defending champions Swieqi United will be hoping to retain their crown for a third year running, despite a change in leadership. The team will be led by Francesco Galluzzo who led Valletta’s youth team until last season. He takes over from Mandy Debono who will remain part of the senior team coaching setup.
Continuity will be the name of the game for Hibernians and San Gwann, who will continue under the tutelage of Kathleen Saliba and Denilson Borg. Kathleen Saliba steered Hibernians to a second place finish last year and will be hoping to better that result to replicate successes at U16 level with the crop of players. Meanwhile, San Gwann finished second to SK Lija in the Bottom Three pool following the split last season. The removal of the split means that San Gwann will test themselves with a target to improve on their standing and destabilise the top four, much like the senior counterpart.
Meanwhile, Valletta is a team that retains its place in the league, but will be a team most under the spotlight following the changes in the off-season. Anton Cremona will be leading both the U21 and the senior team in his first year leading the women’s outfit at Valletta. The side has also had plenty of change with players having donned the shirt in both the youth and senior team for years before, under the Raiders and Valletta namesakes, departing for new pastures.
However, the Citizens have been raising several youth prospects and Cremona will have plenty at his disposal, including new signings hailing from former Mtarfa and Lija Athletic teams who have since disbanded. It will certainly be one of the teams to keep an eye on, as the side dropped to third place last season, dislodged from second by Hibernians.
Birkirkara have made some strong youth signings, but are yet to announce the leadership of the team. The Stripes last lifted the title in the 2022/23 season under the tutelage of Dorianne Theuma, back when it was still a U21 league. The former champions will be looking to at the very least improve on their standing, following a fourth-place finish last season.
Finally, Lija-Mgarr will be the newcomers on the block. This means that Lija Athletic will continue operating in the women’s game but at youth level. Their joined venture with Mgarr United also features a return for the Greens in the youth structure following a hiatus since competing under the SKMM namesake. While joined ventures of this kind have been repeatedly tested to address the lack of strong numbers to form separate teams, their successes have not been proven in recent years. The Lija-Mgarr venture will be the next to be under analysis in the coming season.
The Greens have announced several signings who could feature at U21 level, bringing experience from the competition under different emblems, including the likes of Mtarfa. However, the venture will be mostly tested on the pitch, with little social-media fanfare behind the new team.
Fixtures & First Matches
The competition will kick-off tonight with a double-header as Valletta welcome San Gwann at 18:15 at the Centenary Stadium, followed by the clash between Birkirkara and Swieqi United, starting at 20:30.
Despite coming under heavy spotlight, a global look at the fixtures immediately showcases that calls to give more than a single rest-day between matches of a club’s youth and the senior team matches will likely remain unheeded. This as Valletta and Birkirkara players featuring at youth and senior level could feature again on the pitch just after a day on Thursday’s Assikura Women’s League (senior) opening fixture.
Should the time-limit listed above be imposed and actively enforced, this is expected to alleviate the issue from a player well-being point of view. However, whether teams have properly planned their participations with enough players to fill their rosters across leagues and adequately compete in each, will be a factor that can only be assessed throughout the season. This will be one crucial aspect to keep an eye on for those overlooking the holistic women’s game in Malta.
A deeper look suggests that the reduction from four to three matches in a matchweek in the senior league, due to the reduction of teams to six, has opened the opportunity for more flexibility in fixture schedules between the leagues, opening one more space for a longer breaks of two days. This, if matches in the women’s senior league are constrained to two matchdays on Friday and Saturday, thus removing the Thursday slot. However, the senior league appears to be firmly fixed to a match per day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, continuing to constrain such flexibility.
Until then, the rules have been set and the teams will focus on getting the best opening to the 2025/26 season. The competition sets the stage for new names to shine who will shape the future of the women’s game in Malta as the island hopes to improve youth quality to build on the senior successes at club and country level. This, in the hopes of pushing upward as the competition in the global women’s game continues to become steeper as investment flows into professional structures. The first whistle blows tonight at 18:15.
Lead Image: Michael Azzopardi (Swieqi United)
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[…] pitch. We had a lot of new players who need time to adapt, players coming in following injury, and the 135-minute rule which affected how we balance our younger players. It’s true that everyone is subject to the […]