NZF asks Fifa for financial help

New Zealand Football has written to Fifa hoping for a slice of the governing body’s multi-billion dollar war chest.

Fifa has signalled it would be willing to use some of its vast cash reserves, last reported at $4.6 billion, to help its 211 member nations navigate the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen the sport effectively grind to a halt.

With football suspended at all levels until May 2 and NZ Football preparing for various scenarios relating to the continuation of its winter season, chief executive Andrew Pragnell said he would be ‘‘absolutely’’ interested in any financial relief.

NZ Football has already applied for the Government’s wage subsidy, which Pragnell said would enable the national federation to retain key staff, but any further assistance from Fifa would be welcomed.

‘‘We’ll be interested and have written to them,’’ Pragnell said. ‘‘They sit in a robust financial position you might say, but having said that they have 211 member associations, probably all of whom are in a state of disruption and we’re mindful that while we need to extend requests to all arms of our relationships, they’ll be dealing with a huge number of issues themselves.

‘‘But if you look across sports, having a robust and strong international body sitting behind your national body is one of the things you’d look for in terms of longterm stability and I can safely say we’ve got that.

‘‘The most important thing for sporting organisations at large is that we are able to retain core staff during a period of hibernation so when we can resume some kind of normal we can move quickly back establish operations and not rebuild from scratch.’’

While sport has taken a huge hit across the globe, Pragnell believed NZ Football was in a ‘‘reasonable position’’ to tackle Covid-19 as it was not burdened by full-time player salaries and has a safety net of strong cash reserves.

At the end of 2018, NZ Football had reserves of $7 million. Figures for 2019 aren’t due to be made public until the game’s annual congress in May, but in its 2018 annual report, it had budgeted for a loss of $980,000 after drawing on $400,000 from its reserves, which would have left it with reserves of $5.5 million heading into this year.

On Thursday last week, Sports Minister Grant Robertson said the Government was looking to provide immediate relief to sports organisations battling to stay afloat during the shutdown. As well there would be a recovery package to offer medium-term solutions.

‘‘We do sit in a position where we do have some reserves in place which is good,’’ Pragnell said.

‘‘Not every sporting body is in that position, so that allows us to weather the storm to a certain extent. But the reality is the reserves are somewhat for that but also if the situation was to worsen that we can adjust there as well.

‘‘In some ways we’re different to other sports as our international players are only under contract during the Fifa windows whereas netball and rugby employ their players directly on a full-time basis and that’s more significant for them.’’

However, the loss of the winter season could have bigger ramifications for the seven federations and their member clubs as player registration fees are their primary form of revenue. NZ Football itself made close to $1.5 million from those fees last year, accounting for around 12 per cent of its total revenue.

‘‘It represents a figure that is less than 20 per cent of our overall revenue. If you look at how different sports are impacted by membership fees, while it’s a critical part, it’s not as livelihood-impacting as it is to our federations and clubs, which is their primary form of revenue and that’s where our real concern is.’’

Although no football will be played over the next month, Pragnell remains optimistic that the winter season will take shape in some form. Currently in an ‘‘assessment phase’’, he said NZ Football will have a clearer idea next week, when the Government is due to provide another key update on the lockdown.

‘‘We do sit in a position where we do have some reserves in place which is good.’’ Andrew Pragnell, NZF CEO