NZF boss is missing in action

OPINION: Either way Andy Martin wants to play this Andreas Heraf scandal, his complete lack of leadership suggests that his position at New Zealand Football is untenable.

If you believe what the NZF chief executive said at a press conference on Wednesday, he knew between nothing or very little about serious issues between the Football Ferns players and their coach, Andreas Heraf, until 13 letters of complaint were delivered to him by the New Zealand Professional Footballers’ Association on Monday night.

He must have been so shocked when he read them. One of them was eight pages long.

Eight – a number of pages that indicates at least 3000 words. There is a lot of detail you can get into in 3000 words, all of which was new to Martin, apparently.

New to him in the sense it was thousands of words, from so many players, as opposed to a journalist calling his organisation on May 11 for comment about a player alleging bullying in the Ferns camp in March. That player was shut down, but the truth has come out now.

So, Andy, did you not know about what happened in Spain? Or did you not want to know?

Because a junior player allegedly suffered bullying at the hands of Heraf during a team meeting there. In front of the playing squad. In front of eight staff members.

The other players encouraged the team member to complain, but she decided against it. Her career was on the line.

So, Andy, you’re saying you never heard about that?

If that is to be believed, then that’s almost as bad a reflection upon you as chief executive as if you did know, but didn’t act.

How badly are you running New Zealand Football that no-one bothered to mention a serious bullying incident to you? This isn’t a big organisation, your fulltime staff list runs to no more than 40 people.

People outside of NZF knew about this incident, but somehow it never made its way to you?

You did say on Wednesday former Ferns team manager Claire Hamilton mentioned in her exit interview there were issues with the Ferns’ team culture. Did you follow this up or investigate it?

You said on Wednesday you had to deal in facts. The independent investigation, announced on Wednesday, couldn’t happen until the 13 players came forward with these factual complaints.

Really? It’s your job to know the facts. You should have known about this. Or maybe you didn’t want to know. Perhaps you wanted plausible deniability if the situation ever reached where it has this week. You’ve got a job to protect after all.

But remember, you appointed Heraf as Ferns coach when he was already technical director, so it falls to you to have oversight of both his roles.

You need to know the facts, not partake in amateur paleontology using your head as a spade. You allowed Heraf to submit a report on that Spain camp in his role as technical director, overseeing himself as Ferns coach and reporting nothing untoward happened.

The buck stops with you, and with all this in mind, you should probably leave.

If you don’t, the exodus at NZF headquarters will continue.

Andy, what are you still doing here?