NZF boss backs transparent elections
New Zealand Football president Phil Barry is open to making the process of electing members to its executive committee more transparent in the future.
The governing body has not released a list of candidates for next week’s elections, citing precedent and privacy concerns, even though it has done so on at least one occasion in the past.
Stuff obtained and published a list of candidates earlier this month, ensuring they could be subject to scrutiny from the wider football community, and Barry has said he would support that becoming the norm going forward.
‘‘I would like to consult with the members of ExCo and the voting members on that, but personally, I’m quite open to having the candidates who want to put their names forward doing so knowing that their names will be in the public arena.’’
ExCo was criticised for its hands-off approach to governance in an independent review last year, with reviewer Phillipa Muir finding it needed to obtain greater reporting from management, that there was a perception it was out of touch with football issues and developments, and that its members had not responded adequately on several occasions when they had been informed of issues at the governing body.
NZ Football has had a fullyelected ExCo since late 2014, when it completed a reform process that brought it into alignment with Fifa, the global governing body. ExCo is responsible for governing the game in New Zealand and is supposed to consist of 10 members, with elections for four-year terms taking place at NZ Football’s annual congress.
At present, it has eight members, following the resignations of Jon Ormond and Deryck Shaw last October in the wake of the Muir review.
Ormond had only been elected last May but resigned on a point of principle, telling the rest of ExCo that Muir’s public and private findings had made the position of the president (Shaw] and potentially the board itself untenable. Shaw resigned shortly afterwards ‘‘to allow football to move forward’’.
The 2019 congress takes place next Tuesday in Auckland, with the game’s voting members – the seven regional federations, the Wellington Phoenix, the national men’s league clubs as a collective, the players’ association, and the referees’ association – set to choose from five nominees to fill four vacant seats.
Last year the chairs of Northern Football and Auckland Football both informed Barry that they had no confidence in ExCo as it was currently constituted, while the chairs of the other regional federations – WaiBop, Central, Capital, Mainland, and South – collectively expressed a ‘‘low level of confidence’’ in ExCo. Next Tuesday’s election will give them a chance to make their feelings heard.
After a list of nominees was requested from NZ Football, a spokesman said it had never made one public before, but Stuff has since discovered a full list was published ahead of the first ExCo election in November 2014.
Barry was one of those nominees but said he had forgotten the names were made public at the time.
He also said ExCo hadn’t had any discussions about making the election process more transparent ahead of this year’s congress. ‘‘We will have that discussion going forward. I think that’s an area where we can continue to improve.’’
Barry said NZ Football had asked this year’s candidates whether they would allow their names to be published but several of them had said they would not.
‘‘The legal advice we have received is that it would be a breach of the privacy act for us to release their names, and so we will not be releasing them.’’
It is understood five candidates are in the running for four seats at next Tuesday’s congress – incumbent ExCo member Scott Moran, former Northern Football chairman Thomas Hoey, Huawei NZ deputy managing director Andrew Bowater, Trustpower chairman Paul Ridley-Smith, and former Sport New Zealand board member Jackie Barron.
Auckland Football board member Doug McCaulay withdrew from the process when Stuff began making inquiries, while another incumbent ExCo member, Caroline Beaumont, has chosen not to seek re-election.
After the election takes place on Tuesday, ExCo will put forward two of its members to serve as president and vice president until 2022, with the voting members deciding who will fill which role.