UEFA announced that they have imposed strict sanctions on six Malta youth national team players, two of whom received maximum penalties for prohibited actions aimed at achieving the desired match result.
The suspicion was raised by the European Youth Championship qualifiers against Montenegro and Czech Republic. After the investigation, it was revealed that at least six players were aware of the prohibited actions, two of whom engaged in match-fixing, resulting in sanctions being imposed on them.
Two Maltese representatives received the maximum possible penalty: disqualification from football tournaments for life. Emanuel Briffa and Kyle Cesare were punished for "prohibited actions aimed at influencing the match result unlawfully, for their own benefit or for others".
Four more players were punished for not informing UEFA or team officials about the illegal actions performed by those individuals, although no evidence was found that they benefited from the situation, leading to lesser penalties.
Samir Arab will be away from football for 2 years, Ryan Camenzuli will be unable to play for one and a half years, while Luke Montebello and Llywelyn Cremona are disqualified for one year.
Out of the seven players investigated, only Matthew Cremona proved that he was not involved in the arranged matches and thus avoided disqualification.
