Heraf to stay on, says Martin
New Zealand Football chief Andy Martin has said technical director Andreas Heraf’s comments about Kiwis never having the quality to compete with countries like Japan were ‘‘strange’’, ‘‘wrong’’, and ‘‘shouldn’t have happened’’.
But despite the rebuke, he will not be asking for Heraf’s resignation from that role or as Football Ferns coach, where he is charged with taking the team to next year’s World Cup in France.
‘‘What I listened to is very different from what I’m getting day to day and the conversations we’re having and the conversations we’ve had subsequently,’’ Martin said.
‘‘It wasn’t a smart press conference and we’ll all learnt from that, that’s for sure.’’
Martin fronted after four days of silence yesterday, on the phone from Russia, where he attended Fifa’s annual congress a day earlier. Heraf made his comments on Sunday after the Football Ferns were beaten 3-1 by Japan in Wellington, utilising ultradefensive tactics that have been widely criticised as not reflecting the Kiwi way, and justifying them by pointing to the gulf in quality between New Zealand and bigger nations.
Former Fern, 119-cap midfielder Katie Duncan, has called for his resignation, while another, 132-cap defender Abby Erceg has said his negative approach to football is ‘‘why [she] couldn’t stand to wear that fern on my chest any more’’.
Heraf took charge of the Ferns on an interim basis when they toured Thailand last November, following the resignation of longstanding coach Tony Readings earlier that month. He was then appointed to the role permanently, after a group of senior players requested it from the chief executive, who noted yesterday he took a while to come around to the idea, as it would effectively make Heraf his own boss, a potential conflict of interest.
Martin said Heraf’s approach was response to the team’s failure to make it out of the group stage at the 2015 World Cup – which they might have, if not for widelypanned refereeing decisions – and the 2016 Olympics – where they were grouped with the United States and France, then two of the top three teams in the world.
‘‘Ultimately we’ve got to change. We stand still and we continue to see us not perform at those events, or we do something different, and of course we’ve chosen to do something different, because we’re committed to the women’s game, because we’ve got a very talented group of Ferns that we want to see kicking on and fulfilling their potential.
‘‘In the Ferns role, the coach and players will be judged on results.’’
Heraf’s comments and the Ferns’ defensive approach have sparked a wave of criticism at a time where concerns have been mounting around the New Zealand football community that he has been dismissive of the domestic game and the potential of Kiwi footballers and could halt the steady progress that has been made over the past decade.
Former All Whites coaches Ricki Herbert and Kevin Fallon are among those have expressed concerns about the suitability of Heraf for his roles, given his comments, as is former All White Declan Edge, who runs the Ole Academy in Wellington, arguably the country’s most successful youth development programme.
Earlier this week, Heraf claimed he had received plenty of support since Sunday, but could not name any names, while Martin said likewise yesterday.