Canada coach John Herdman turned down an offer to coach the All Whites. Photo / Getty
Canada coach John Herdman turned down an offer to coach the All Whites. Photo / Getty
OPINION:
New Zealand Football CEO Andrew Pragnell probably slept soundly last night.
He believed he’d succeeded in pulling off a major coup, convincing Canadian coach John Herdman to become the new All Whites coach. While he wasn’t mentioned by name, it was widely known Herdman was the “preferred candidate” withterms agreed and just a contract to be signed once a family health matter had been dealt with.
Probably before Pragnell even had the chance to pour his morning coffee, he was hit with the news he’d lost his man. In a statement, Canada Soccer and Herdman reiterated their commitment to one another, with Herdman confirming he’d turned down the offer from New Zealand Football.
One of the truisms of recruitment is that until you have a signature, you don’t have a deal, and that has proven to be the case here. Rather than ink on a contract, NZF now has egg on its face.
Why did NZF even reference a “preferred candidate”? Pragnell and New Zealand Football probably felt they needed to provide an update on the coaching situation when they announced friendly matches in March against China. Having initially said they wanted a coach locked in by Christmas, they needed to show progress as we drifted into February. Unfortunately, it was widely known in football circles Herdman was the aforementioned “preferred candidate” and once Canada Soccer got wind of the fact others were circling, they moved quickly to lock him in, almost certainly on improved terms.
How has this happened? How have New Zealand Football been convinced they had Herdman, when the deal was clearly still uncertain? The likely chain of events is pretty easy to follow.
New Zealand Football CEO Andrew Pragnell. Photo / Photosport
New Zealand Football opened a recruitment process for the next All Whites coach and Herdman applied. He went through an interview process and wowed the panel (which included a couple of senior All Whites) with a presentation on his vision for the side over the next World Cup cycle. That was followed by further conversations with Pragnell, those players and others — at which point NZF landed on Herdman as the one they wanted. They agreed terms, and it appears that Herdman gave every indication he wanted to take up the role. Then, at the 11th hour, he changed his mind and re-signed with Canada, leaving NZF with a PR mess to clean up and still no All Whites coach.
Did Herdman ever really want the job? Having last year guided Canada to their first World Cup since 1986, he could look forward to the next tournament in 2026, to be co-hosted by Canada. Why would he give that up to join a programme with an — at best — draft programme of fixtures and nothing in the way of competitive games until Oceania qualifying begins sometime in 2025? It’s highly likely he was always going to stay, but was indulging in Employment Negotiation 101.
Herdman is certainly not the first person to use this classic tactic and won’t be the last. Any interest from other parties is a key leveraging tool in occupational discussions; it happens in business every day. If you tell your current employer a competitor has offered you a job, it’s very common for your company to counter-offer, usually boosting your pay and benefits.
Pragnell and the others involved at NZF would have taken Herdman’s application in good faith. They would have assumed he actually wanted the job. That may seem naive in hindsight, but what other approach could they take?
They’ve become the hapless pawn in a greater game of chess. They’ve been played. That doesn’t paint Herdman in a particularly good light, but I doubt he cares. The outcome for him is a win.
The big question now is what NZF do next. They’ve lost their man (if they ever had him) and will no doubt take lessons from the way this has played out, but they still need an All Whites coach. They’ve failed to secure Herdman, had their number two candidate Des Buckingham withdraw from the race and told Phoenix coach Ufuk Talay he’s not the man they’re after. Much as interim coach Darren Bazeley is a faithful and loyal servant, he’s not the man to lead the All Whites.
Once they’ve dealt with the extremely awkward fallout from this and the inevitable questions about their apparent gullibility, NZF will need to go back to the market.
Buckingham and Talay seem like good first phone calls to make, but in Talay’s case in particular, he’d be quite within his rights to ignore the approach, having given everything to his initial application and been judged not good enough.
A trendy catchphrase often used by elite modern-day sports teams is you either win or you learn. There are very basic, yet harsh lessons to be learnt from this shambolic turn of events.
