All Whites playoff has a $14m prize Loss to Peru would hit fixture list
Silver Ferns crash to 4-0 series defeat in Sydney. Report, pB4
The All Whites will put more than just World Cup qualification on the line when they meet Peru in next month’s intercontinental playoff.
Winning will provide New Zealand Football with a US$10 million (NZ$14m) boost that automatically comes from World Cup participation, securing a consistent programme of games for the All Whites through the next four-year World Cup cycle.
Losing will see them left with whatever they are able to scrounge from the playoff, with the selling of television rights for the home leg in Wellington set to provide the biggest windfall, but not enough to sustain their current activity levels.
They were extremely fortunate four years ago to get more than $6m out of broadcaster Univision when they hosted Mexico for the playoff, even though the on-field aggregate loss was 9-3.
That won’t be the case this year, NZF chief executive Andy Martin confirmed.
‘‘Mexico obviously was a perfect storm, final game, two big broadcasters in Mexico bidding for the game,’’ he said.
‘‘This time it’s the first game and there’s no secrets, the biggest TV deal would have been with the Argentinian market.
‘‘Peru is probably mid-range in terms of that league, so I would imagine it’s in the low million. If we get above a million, to two million, that’s the ballpark we’d be happy with, but it’s in the market as we speak.’’
NZF will receive $2.3m from playing in the Confederations Cup in June this year, which made up more than half of their budgeted revenue from competitions and events of $4.4m for 2017, according to their 2016 annual report.
That annual report budgeted for a $1.2m loss for the calender year 2017, with budgeted overall revenue of $15m and expenses of $16.2m.
That’s what makes the $14m from World Cup qualification so crucial. It would almost double their revenue for the year, as it did when they qualified in 2010, allowing the All Whites to continue the high levels of activity they have experienced in recent times.
It would also serve to keep NZF’s reserves in a healthy position.
The financial strife which crippled NZF in the mid-2000s remains some way off, but the reported profits from each of the last three years have come about after transfers of $750,000, $1.1m and 1.4m from their reserves. Richard Knowler column
NZF’s reserves sit at $6.5m, down from $8.7m in 2013, while there is an additional $4.3m sitting with the New Zealand Football Foundation, which was started after the 2010 World Cup as a capital fund for the game. In 2008, NZF had negative reserves – they owed people money.
The international teams reserve, which helps fund All Whites and age-group teams’ playing activities, has fallen to $204,000, a similar level to the $400,000 it sat at in 2012 before it received a $3.1m injection after the Mexico game.
So there is still a fair bit of money in the bank, but in order to keep reporting profits without the big cash injection of a Mexico-level TV rights deal or World Cup participation, costs would need to be cut or transfers from reserves would need to continue.
Martin said the former was likely to be on the cards.
‘‘We’ve said before the 2010 windfall has now expired, and that’s what’s been funding what we’ve been able to do with the All Whites and making sure they’ve been busy for the last two or three years,’’ Martin said. ‘‘Going forward, if we don’t qualify then obviously we’ve got to cut our costs slightly, but that’s business.’’
For a bit of perspective, it costs NZF more than $300,000 to stage an All Whites home game against Oceania nations, and even more to get other nations to play friendlies here. So the first bit of cost-cutting would be international friendlies, Martin said.
‘‘We’ve played in pretty much every window for the last year or two. There is no way, and we haven’t done in the past, that that would continue if we didn’t qualify.
‘‘This game [playoff] is huge for the international programme to make sure we can continue to progress as we’ve been doing, but it’s not a do or die.
‘‘If we don’t qualify and we don’t pick up the big prize ticket then we will continue progressing. It could be at a slower pace, and perhaps not as flash as we’ve been doing over the past period.’’ pB2
Going forward, if we don’t qualify then obviously we’ve got to cut our costs slightly, but that’s business.