Alex Borg: The Maltese snooker rebel who refuses to be any politician’s puppet

‘I’m in nobody’s pocket’ – Alex Borg
The maverick Maltese snooker ace who refuses to be a puppet in anyone’s theatre

By Hot Malta Staff

Valletta – Walk into the Qawra Snooker Club on any given Tuesday night and the first thing you’ll hear is the clack of resin balls. The second is Alex Borg’s laugh—deep, unfiltered, unmistakably Birkirkara. At 49, Malta’s most successful cue-sport export is supposed to be winding down. Instead, he’s winding people up—especially the ones who think they own the game.

“I’m in nobody’s pocket,” Borg tells Hot Malta, leaning against the same table where, aged 12, he dismantled grown men for 50c bets. “Not the federation’s, not a sponsor’s, not some minister’s who wants a photo-op when I win. I play for Malta, yes—but on my terms.”

In a country where sporting heroes are often funnelled into state-funded niches—think water-polo clubs with centuries-old patronage or football teams bank-rolled by construction magnates—Borg’s stubborn independence is cultural heresy. He’s the anti-padrino: no godfather, no cushy municipal job, no envelope under the table. Just a cue, a suitcase and a ranking that refuses to die.

From Marsa to the Crucible
Born in St Luke’s Hospital 1974, Borg grew up above his mother’s kiosk on Marsa’s horse-racing track. The area was rough—“you learned to run before you walked” he jokes—but it bred a fighter. By 16 he was Malta’s youngest national champion; by 24 he’d qualified for the World Snooker Championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, the first Maltese player ever to do so. The island came to a standstill; viewing parties erupted in village band clubs, and Eddie Fenech Adami’s government declared a half-day so schoolkids could watch on TV.

Yet, unlike other athletes who parlay national pride into lifelong stipends, Borg returned home to… nothing. “I asked for help to get to the next tournament. I was told the budget went to table football because ‘more kids play that’,” he smirks. “So I sold my motorbike, bought a Ryanair ticket and kept qualifying. Still do.”

Cultural rebel with a cause
Maltese society prizes “ħsieb il-komunità”—community thinking—but also clings to a patronage system older than the Knights. Borg’s refusal to ingratiate himself with either major political camp is therefore radical. When Labour MPs tweeted congratulations after his 2023 World Seniors win, he reposted them with the caption: “Thanks. Now fund grassroots tables, not just selfies.” Ouch.

“Alex is the only athlete who can fill a social-media feed with both Żabbar pensioners and Sliema hipsters,” says Maria Camilleri, who runs the Malta Snooker Academy. “He’s a working-class hero who speaks fluent English—our own Bond without the tux.”

Community impact: more than balls and cues
Walk around Gżira’s informal African community and you’ll find kids calling Borg “Coach Al” every Sunday. Since 2018 he’s funded free snooker sessions for migrants, ploughing €18,000 of his prize money into cues, biscuits and transport. “Snooker taught me angles, patience, dignity—things migration can’t steal,” he says. The programme has already produced two under-16 national finalists; one, 14-year-old Nigerian-Maltese Tunde Johnson, just beat a child of a former minister at the Malta Open. Cue symbolic fireworks.

The federation responds
Malta Billiards & Snooker Federation president Victor Cassar denies neglect: “We gave Alex €5,000 last season.” Borg fires back: “That’s less than the cost of one tournament entry plus accommodation for a year. They spend more on a single federation dinner.” The stand-off continues, played out in Times of Malta comments sections that read like a festa fireworks feud.

Legacy in chalk dust
Borg’s highest world ranking was 48 in 2003; today he’s 72 but still the only Maltese inside the top 100. More importantly, he’s inspired a generation that no longer sees snooker as “English pub sport” but as Maltese as pastizzi. Village bars now stream matches at 3 a.m.; youths replicate his trick shots on TikTok, overlaying them with traditional għana music. Even the Archbishop quoted him: “Being in nobody’s pocket is being in God’s light.”

As our interview ends, Borg packs his cue into a scuffed case sticker-bombed with Maltese crosses. He’s off to catch the 5 a.m. Catamaran to Sicily, then a budget flight to the UK qualifying rounds. “I might lose,” he shrugs, “but I’ll lose on my feet, not on my knees.”

In a nation where strings are pulled as casually as pastizzi are eaten, Alex Borg remains gloriously, defiantly stringless. And that, dear Hot Malta reader, is the greatest break of all.