The GFA said ‘We’re Ready!’ Were they?

By Rebecca Calderon
On 24th May 2013 Gibraltar got into UEFA and everyone celebrated. Football went from amateur to professional overnight, we’d be playing in the EUROS, and local clubs would fight it out for Champions and Europa League places. Before this, football in Gibraltar was community-based around family ties and the club house, with money raised through raffles and bingo. Now it’s all about coaches and players from abroad, investors and financial enticements as 100s of 1000s of pounds go to clubs who get those precious European slots. Football as a business was immediate and the money came rolling in, but was the Gibraltar Football Association ‘ready’ like its slogan boasted?

BEGINNINGS
In those early years UEFA sent over reps to carry out seminars and training programs. UEFA invested money in coaching and refereeing courses, they provided valuable advice about security and the high risk of match-fixing in small jurisdictions. I attended most of these events and recall being told in clear terms: “We’re here to advise and help Gibraltar. Do not fall into the trap of many small nations who get carried away with the sudden influx of money. You’re never going to win the EUROS or even reach the final tournament so DO NOT plough all the funding into the men’s national team or a flashy new stadium. Invest in the grass roots, the women and girls, training pitches, kits for kids, support for parents.” Did the GFA listen to that sage advice? No, it did not, and 12 years on the GFA are still making terrible mistakes.

The GFA’s first huge error was the Europa Point Stadium proposal. They hired out the Gustavo Bacarisas gallery with a glitzy exhibition of costly architectural drawings and video clips of the Chief Minister and Minister for Sport saying it was ‘just what Gibraltar needed’ and the Government would back it all the way. All showed their acute ignorance of the community as thousands signed a petition to stop the stadium project and it was abandoned. Rather than simply upgrade the existing Victoria Stadium, the GFA then pushed for the Lathbury Barracks project which also failed. It was around this time that the GFA acquired large premises in Irish Town with a retail outlet for replica kits and memorabilia. This also failed and now they’re selling kits out of cardboard boxes from a storeroom in the Victoria Stadium while they employ a cumbersome staff on the 7th floor of the World Trade Centre. Where has the grassroots football ethic of Gibraltar gone?

Of course, the GFA can be forgiven for making some initial mistakes. Here was a group of people who had little or no experience of running a business, handling huge sums of money and dealing with human resources and admin. They wrongly paid out money that was for development to Manchester 62 as compensation (they mistakenly gave Europa FC a place in the league because they read the rules wrong!) Then there was the extremely unpopular (and costly) decision to do away with the historical GFA badge and replace it with something that looked like a warped Citroën logo.

Meanwhile youth programs have suffered, the historic club Gibraltar United went bust and women’s football was neglected. The sense of community football in Gibraltar has vanished and we are the only UEFA nation without a Sunday league. Where has all that UEFA and FIFA money gone? The men fly on private jets to play in easily accessible European capitals, their headrests embroidered with the GFA logo, and there are ridiculous levels of luxury and 5-star hotels. The mysterious Marshall Report of 2019 was an independent audit which showed serious financial shortcomings within the GFA, but it was never made public. Then there was the ‘Unusual Betting Incident’. All these things tarnish Gibraltar’s reputation so where is the transparency? The GFA is our national football association after all, and the public has a right to ask questions and expect answers. Sports journalist Molly McElwee delves deeply into all things GFA in her brilliant podcast series How To Build a Football Nation [https://open.spotify.com/show/463Lv4gec9rJG1y54aFjJn?si=822496e6843d4d09&nd=1&dlsi=35c669beff384680 ].

‘DISCRIMINATION’
When Gibraltar became UEFA members things did not magically change for women footballers like it did for the men. UEFA made it clear that women must be given equal treatment, yet the GFA ignored them. In 2025 the women played their 1st competitive international match, 11 years after the men. In 2023 The Rockettes were looking forward to participating in the inaugural UEFA Women’s Nations League, but the GFA pulled them out at the last minute stating they were ‘not ready’. The men’s team were ‘not ready’ in 2014, yet they played.

This sexual discrimination was brought to the fore in local media, but many players were too frightened to speak out for fear of losing their place in the squad. The GFA spends less on women’s football than they spend on referees and the men get fourteen times the investment that our women get. If a woman plays for her nation, she is not paid, however, men and referees are. Why the discrimination?

If you don’t fund people in competitive situations they won’t progress. The GFA have since admitted they have got things wrong and have been dragged kicking and screaming into 2025. Things are looking a lot better now and women’s football is becoming very popular in Gibraltar.

NATIONAL STADIUM
In 2017, the Gibraltar government sold the Victoria Stadium to GFA National Stadium Limited for £16.5 million. The reason the price was so reasonable was because UEFA and FIFA were funding the purchase in order that Gibraltar could have a suitable National Stadium with all the requisite facilities for football. Much like Andorra (whose population is double that of Gibraltar and their stadium is just over 3,000 seats) the GFA were given special dispensation to have under 4,000 seats as we struggle to fill a stadium with 2,000 (players and fans will testify from the Faro experience, it’s no fun playing in an echo chamber full of empty seats). However, in 2022 the GFA unveiled an extravagant 8,000-seater ‘venue’ complete with shopping mall, luxury apartments and a hotel, all costing £100 million. UEFA and FIFA are now NOT going to fund the project so why have the GFA made such a strange decision?

Last week Parliament confirmed that the Government would be loaning the GFA £2 million for this unnecessary, and partly private, project. There has been public outcry and rightly so, yet the government stands by and lets the current GFA ride roughshod over Gibraltar’s realistic football needs. They did not intervene when the women were clearly discriminated against, and they do not arm themselves with the facts. Current Minister for Sport, Leslie Bruzon, when questioned on GBC in November 2023 was in support of 8,000 seats but could not justify why in a sporting sense. He then went on to say: “The FIFA would give us a waiver so that we can play as if we were, you know a bigger stadium, a Cat 6 or Cat 8 stadium”. There is no such thing as a Cat 6 or Cat 8 stadium and it was incredible that a minister did not know this. We are led to believe that if we don’t construct a Cat 4, 8,000-capacity stadium locally then Gibraltar cannot host World Cup Qualifiers, but this is simply not true. Why aren’t the Gibraltar government pushing for the original plans with all the grass roots facilities which UEFA would fund? They sold the land off cheap to be used for community football needs, training pitches, decent changing rooms, a great venue for our national game (much like the one over in La Linea); the land was not sold so it could be used by property developers for profit. Only the men’s senior team is required to play matches in Faro and there’s an average of five home matches per year. This means that Gibraltar is building a huge edifice which will block out the Rock and ruin the matchday atmosphere just for something that happens 5 or 6 times a year. With all that expense and bling how much will the match tickets cost?

This grandiose scheme is without purpose and will not provide what our local clubs, youth teams and spectators require. Our land is precious, and we should use it wisely. Gibraltar has an ongoing housing crisis, and the housing minister has stated that we would need to reclaim land from the sea to build government stock and that would be ‘very expensive’. The Victoria Stadium and the land around it was sold off cheap to the GFA so why is it being used for luxury flats as opposed to much needed government rental stock? The humongous stadium project must be stopped, and the GFA should revert to a sensible 4,000-seater venue low enough that our players can look up to the iconic Rock when they sing the national anthem.

Rebecca Calderon is an author and lifelong fan of the beautiful game.