Former goalkeeper accuses Nationalist Party leadership contender of “ruining my career and my life”

Malta Today has published a story about how Nationalist Party leadership contender Adrian Delia, together with his colleagues at Birkirkara Football Club, forced a goalkeeper into a car, took him to a garage in Bugibba and there tried to extract information from him by illegal means, about match-fixing. Dr Delia has denied to the newspaper that he took the law into his own hands.

This is not a new story, but then nor is it old enough to have been forgotten already. It happened last December and it was reported that month in the Times of Malta. But most people would have missed it because they don’t care about Maltese football or Birkirkara FC and Adrian Delia’s name meant nothing back then.

But just four weeks ago, when Dr Delia was already a contender for the Nationalist Party leadership, Miroslav Kopric, the footballer who was detained in a garage by Dr Delia and other men, told the Times of Malta that he intends to sue them for ruining his “life and career” with “false accusations of match-fixing”.

Mr Kopric told the Times of Malta: “The outcome of the investigation was that there is no evidence that I was involved in match fixing, I was never taken to the court and the police closed the investigation. When all of this started, I voluntarily handed to the people from Birkirkara FC my laptop, two mobile phones and a hard disk so they can check and determine that their accusations were false. They handed the items to the police.

“Today, almost seven months after, they are still keeping my stuff because the court expert did not finish his report. It appears that he is overloaded with work, which is really not our problem, and he has no time to finish what he was tasked. It is absolutely unacceptable for us as this whole story is taking to long.

“Because of the stress caused by these lies, my wife spent two months in a hospital for pregnancy complications and gave birth to our twins 6 weeks earlier. My four-year old daughter has experienced trauma as well as my parents. Because of these false accusations I couldn’t do my job for last six months and get paid for it, because nobody wanted to hire a goalkeeper who was ‘involved’ in match fixing. And I cannot prove that I am innocent because one court expert in Malta doesn’t respect the deadlines.

“The only purpose of me coming to Malta was to do my job and play football, to help Birkirkara FC to achieve their goals and to earn money for my family. In July 2016., when the club made his biggest achievement in the history of Maltese football and passed to third round of UEFA cup, I was a hero. In December the club accused me of betrayal and ruined my life without any single evidence. I was never in my whole life involved in any illegal actions and have never had any problems with the police until I came to Malta and just wanted to do what I like the most- play football.”