The FA Trophy, currently known as the IZIBET FA Trophy for sponsorship reasons, is an annual

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

cup competition that takes place in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. The cup was founded in 1933; following a match between

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, played in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in May 1933, to where a number of pro-British Maltese supporters travelled to support the English side.

The Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the ...

as recognition donated a silver trophy to be played on the model of the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

. The team who wins the cup, wins a place in the First qualifying round of the

UEFA Europa Conference League The UEFA Europa Conference League (abbreviated as UECL) is an annual football club competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. Clubs qualify for the competition based on their ...

. This competition is now played on a knock-out basis between all the senior clubs in the Maltese and Gozitan football pyramids. The cup winners play a match for the

Maltese Super Cup The Maltese Super Cup is an annual super cup tie held in Malta between the champions of the previous Maltese Premier League season and the holders of the Maltese FA Trophy. In the event that the Premier League champion also won the FA Trophy, the ...

against the

league League or The League may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band * ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football Sports * Sports league * Rugby league, full contact footba ...

champions of the season.

Format

The ten teams from the First Division and the teams which placed from 4th to the 10th position in the previous season's league, participate in the first round. The cup holders and the top 3 teams are seeded. The eight winning teams play again in the second round, after which, four teams remain. The top three teams in the previous' year league and the cup holders enter straight in the quarter-final phase, together with the other four winning teams. Starting with the 2009–10 competition, the reigning champions of the Gozo First Division will also be entered into the competition. This will be the case unless

Gozo FC Gozo Football Club was a Maltese football club based on the island of Gozo. Gozo FC was founded in 1987. The club was disbanded following the end of the 2010-2011 season. Gozo FC was run by the Gozo Football Association. It represented the is ...

, a club based on Gozo but which plays in the Maltese leagues, are playing in either the Maltese Premier League or Maltese First Division and would take the place of the Gozo champion. On 13 January 2011, the

Malta Football Association The Malta Football Association (MFA; mt, Assoċjazzjoni tal-Futbol ta' Malta) is the governing body of football in Malta. The Association organises the Maltese Football League and several other competitions, including a knockout competition ...

decided to restructure the format of the trophy as from season 2011–12. Following the success of the MFA League Anniversary Cup, where the then 21 teams of the Maltese four-tiered system participated in the competition, the MFA decided to include all the clubs of Maltese leagues, together with the clubs from the Gozo First Division and the Gozo Second Division. The Gozitan clubs and those from the

Maltese Third Division The Maltese Third Division (also known as the BOV Third Division due to sponsorship reasons) was the lowest league level in Maltese football until 2020 when it was merged with the Maltese Second Division to create the National Amateur League. ...

would take part in the First Round, joined by the

Maltese Second Division The Maltese Second Division (also known as the BOV Second Division due to sponsorship reasons) was the third-highest division in Maltese football until 2020 when it was merged with the Maltese Third Division to create the National Amateur Leag ...

and

Maltese First Division The Maltese Challenge League (referred to as the BOV Challenge League for sponsorship reasons) is the second-highest division in Maltese football, behind the Maltese Premier League. The First Division was the precursor of the present Premier L ...

clubs in the Second Round, and joined by the

Maltese Premier League The Maltese Premier League, known as BOV Premier League for sponsorship reasons with Bank of Valletta (colloquially known as ''Il-Kampjonat Premjer''), is the highest level of professional football in Malta. Managed by the Malta Football Associa ...

clubs in a Third Round, where the first six teams of the previous season and the Trophy holder would be seeded. The competition remains on a knock-out basis. On 21 May 2016, the old silver trophy has been replaced by a new one, partially paid by the english FA. The new trophy has been presented right before the match between

and

for the 2018 World Cup qualifiers. The new Trophy will be 65 cm in height, and 7 kilogrammes in weight, six of which are solid silver. The trophy will be produced with the traditional methods of silversmithing, by hand. The new Trophy will carry forward the main features of the current FA Trophy, with the player holding the ball aloft being the top part on a silver pedestal, also featured on the current trophy, containing the exact wording which symbolises the bond between the English FA and the Malta FA, the globe and the base will remain identical, with the effigy of the football match found on the current trophy also retaining its place. The new trophy has been designed in the shape of the old Cassar Cup, which was another historical competition of the MFA in which the best two British service teams used to play against the two best Maltese teams for the cup. Veterans recall the passion of these matches with the Maltese football aficionados all rooting for the Maltese teams against the British ones. Since this new restructuring of the competition in the 2011–12 season, already a major resemblance to the English F.A. Cup is evident as a lot of giant-killings have already taken place. The best story so far has been that of

S.K. Victoria Wanderers F.C. S.K. Victoria Wanderers Football Club is a Maltese football club from the town of Victoria, Gozo. They were founded in 1958 and throughout the club's history, they have won the Gozo Football League First Division championship once, as Victoria ...

reaching the semi-finals of the 2016-17 edition, as they became the first Gozitan club has reached in this competition. Both the 2019–20 and the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

seasons of the trophy has been declared abandoned by the MFA due to the spread of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Winners and finalists

Performance by club

References

External links

The FA Trophy

Trophy on MaltaFootball.com
{{National football Cups (UEFA region) 1 National association football cups 1933 establishments in Malta