No Wynn-ers
Why NZ Football needs to appeal in eligibility saga.
NEW ZEALAND Football owes it to more than the current Olympic squad to appeal their exclusion to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Oceania Football Confederation were never going to uphold the NZF appeal over Deklan Wynne’s eligibility and the national under-23 team’s subsequent ejection from the Oceania Olympic Games qualifying tournament in Papua New Guinea.
It was always going to be a foregone conclusion that the OFC appeals committee would back the original decision.
A can of worms would have been opened had the NZF appeal been successful with Fiji already confirmed as Oceania’s Olympic Games representative.
Lamentably, OFC chief executive Tai Nicholas or president David Chung aren’t prepared to front and explain the appeal committee’s decision.
The three-line OFC statement announcing the failed appeal was risible in the extreme. They owe the Oceania football community more transparency.
Perhaps the OFC officials are lying low because they still expect NZF will have their day in court – the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), to be precise.
NZF have no choice but to take a case to CAS, based in Lausanne, Switzerland but with a satellite office in Sydney.
It’s been a bad time for New Zealand Football with the All Whites’ world ranking plummeting to a record low 148, below South Sudan and Lesotho.
Its credibility after the Deklan Wynne eligibility saga is lower than rugby referee Craig Joubert’s popularity in Scotland.
New Zealand’s high-handed attitude at Oceania qualifying tournaments has already put it offside with its football neighbours.
NZF can count themselves lucky Fifa did not wield the big stick and ban all its international teams, male and female, from international competition. There were plenty of precedents for punitive action.
Perhaps they were banking on OFC accepting their contrition and hoping former NZF director of football Fred de Jong, who resigned last month, would be seen as a convenient scapegoat.
Unwittingly, or not, NZF have jeopardised the Olympic dream of their best young players.
This is the biggest blunder ever from a body which has committed its fair share of soccer snafus.
Chief executive Andy Martin is still insisting that NZF did nothing wrong.
But the OFC, who clearly would also have had legal advice, are adamant rules were breached.
Martin says any decision to go to CAS ‘‘will be influenced by a number of factors including the potential grounds for further appeal and the wishes of all affected parties’’.
They owe it to 23 affected parties – the potential Olympic squad – to exhaust every avenue for appeal, no matter the cost.