Pragnell making case for permanent role
New Zealand Football won’t have a new permanent chief executive until April and it could end up being the man who has filled the role on an interim basis for the past six months.
Andrew Pragnell has been in charge of the governing body since the start of August, but didn’t apply when the job was advertised in November.
NZ Football’s executive committee [ExCo] was presented with a list of candidates before Christmas, but decided none were suitable
The role will be re-advertised in mid-March, but the recruitment process won’t be completed until mid-April, after the game’s annual congress, where two vacancies on the 10-member ExCo will be filled, and two existing members are up for re-election.
The timing ensures the eventual hire will be chosen by a full-strength ExCo that has received a fresh mandate from NZ Football’s voting members.
While he won’t be making a decision until he has to, Pragnell has come around to the possibility of taking on the job on a permanent basis.
‘‘I’m definitely contemplating it as an option,’’ he said. ‘‘I’d say there’s a fair bit of water to go under the bridge before anything happens there, but I’m not ruling it out.’’ If he decides he wants the job permanently, Pragnell would be a leading contender, not least because he wouldn’t require a settling-in period at a time when the organisation has key vacancies to fill and important decisions to make.
It has been without a technical director since last June, with Andy Boyens stepping in on an interim basis, and is also lacking a chief operating officer, following the departure of Dave Payne last month. The recruitment process for those senior management roles won’t begin until a chief executive is found.
The relationship between the governing body and the country’s only professional football club was thrust into the spotlight on Friday, when Wellington Phoenix coach Mark Rudan called on the two to work more closely together while saying NZ Football had to get its house in order.
Yesterday, a NZ Football spokesperson said Pragnell and Boyens were ‘‘excited and impressed’’ by the impact Rudan has had at the Phoenix and were ‘‘looking forward to exploring opportunities for greater collaboration between the two organisations in the future.’’
Speaking earlier in the week, Pragnell said he had been enthused by the reception he had received so far from the wider New Zealand football community.
‘‘There’s lots of good people out there; everyone’s trying to do their best for football, and if you start with that position, and listen to what they’ve got to say, there’s heaps of value to be added.
‘‘I’ve been encouraged by the reception, but I think that talks to them as much as anything else.
‘‘It’s never easy, particularly for people who work in sport, where you’ve got a really big volunteer base. They’re not easy roles . . . and I’m not talking about this role necessarily, I’m talking about people who work in federations, people who chair clubs . . . they’re not easy gigs.
‘‘If everyone starts from the right place, which is, actually, we’re all under a bit of pressure, and there’s a lot of opinions out there, then you can hear each other a lot easier.’’