Glading: Too harsh to say we were out of our depth
Michael Glading, the New Zealand Football chief executive at the time, believes the idea the organisation were out of their depth at the 2010 World Cup is harsh. However, he added it was a new experience.
“Don’t forget the organisation two years earlier [2008] had been broke, and we were going into a whole new world. Definitely, it was challenging, but chaos for me is far too harsh a description.”
Glading said they didn’t have the finances or staff to cope with the demands of a major tournament, which largely came down to a money-saving mentality from New Zealand Football. He said, in hindsight, that wasn’t a smart use of their money.
“The organisation post-World
Cup was in a position where it had money in the bank and some of those things would not have happened again.”
Glading said there was separation between the playing group and the administrative side of New Zealand Football following a request from the All Whites’ team management.
“I felt that was a bit of a shame. If you put people in a room together and they socialise a bit more you’ve got more chance of sorting out some of those issues.”
Looking back, he wished he had gone about things differently.
“Post the World Cup, 12 months later, I did sit down and have a really good chat with Ryan — one to one — and we made a lot of peace over a lot of issues. I was quite pleased that he took the time out.”