Tickets for Valletta-Juventus friendly on sale as from today
Tickets for the prestigious Valletta-Juventus friendly scheduled for 9 January 2008 will go on sale as from today from two outlets. Another will be available as from next Monday.
The Juventus Club and Valletta FC will have tickets available as from today, while all the nine GoMobile outlets on these islands will have them available from Monday.
Addressing a news conference at the Le Meridien Hotel in St Julian’s yesterday, Dr Anton Tabone, on behalf of the organisers, Renaissance Productions Ltd., announced the price of these tickets.
They will be sold at Lm15 for the North and South stands, Lm25 at the Millennium Stand, Lm35 in the Enclosure and Lm45 in the VIP stand. However, GoMobile outlets will have a limited number of discounted tickets, available at the price of Lm10, while those buying their ticket from the two clubs will have the price deducted by Lm3, that is, tickets will cost Lm12.
Juventus will be arriving in Malta with their full squad (including any injured players) on 6 January. Their programme includes visits by some players to the two Juventus Supporters Clubs in Malta and Gozo as well as the friendly match against Valletta. A special gala evening is scheduled to be held on 7 January with all the players in attendance. It is being held at the SkyClub in Paceville but attendance is limited to between 2,000 and 3,000 persons. On the day before the Valletta match, their training session at the Ta’ Qali National Stadium will be open to the public. The programme will then include full training sessions, some of which may also be held in one of our bays, the others probably at the Ta’ Qali training grounds.
The Juventus contingent, which will also include president Cobolli Gigli and other top officials, as well as trainers, chefs and the medical staff, will be leaving Malta one day before their match in Catania. That will be either Friday or Saturday (11 or 12 January), depending on the day of the match. They will be flying to Catania via AirMalta and from there, they will go back to Turin immediately after their Serie A match.
The Turin club’s training camp in Malta follows in the aftermath of last year’s visit by Milan, during which the Rossoneri also played against local club Birkirkara. This year’s Juventus visit has attracted interest from the major newspapers and news agencies in Italy, among them ANSA, Tuttosport, La Stampa, il Giornale, La Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport.
The event is being sponsored by Go and Betfair as main sponsors with the Hotel Le Meridien, AirMalta, Malta Tourism Authority, Jaguar, Arkadia and Coca-Cola also giving their valuable support to the organisers.
Dr Tabone said the company had to pay a considerable sum to Juventus to bring them over to Malta and play a match here apart from the training camp. “In this respect we also praise Birkirkara FC for their initiative in bringing over Milan last January. That helped to project Malta as a favourite place for such training camps by leading clubs such as Juventus. We made a very considerable investment. We are aware that there were other bids which might have attracted Juventus, but we managed to convince the Bianconeri to come to Malta, even perhaps because of the strong presence of fans (an estimated 20,000) on these two islands.”
Dr Michael Sciriha, Juventus Club Vero Amore president in Malta, said this was a dream come true. “We have nurtured such a dream for years. Seeing our favourites among us is something we will never forget,” he said, adding that those interested in buying tickets for the occasion are to get them from Fenech Building in St Venera, as from today. They hope to fill one of the stands behind the goalposts for the match against Valletta.
It was also revealed yesterday by Dr Tabone, that one or two Juventus players will also be crossing over to Gozo to meet the fans at the club on the sister island.
Victor Sciriha, Valletta FC president, said it was an honour for his club to be playing against such a famous side. “It is an honour for Valletta FC. On our part, we assure everyone there will be a spectacle. The atmosphere which our numerous fans create on such occasions will remain memorable to all those attending the Ta’ Qali Stadium on 9 January,” he said.
Malta Independent Online