An operational athletics test has been held while the quality of the river Seine continues to concern organisers. Video / AP
THREE KEY FACTS:
Jitka Klimková stood down from leading the Football Ferns into the Paris Olympics next month.
Klimková was cleared to return as Football Ferns head coach earlier this month after an investigation.
Klimková is currently signed on a six-year contract, which runs until the end of the 2027 Fifa Women’s World Cup.
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist since 2005, winning several national awards and covering Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns. He has also reported on the Warriors and NRL for more than a decade.
It’s hard to imagine Jitka Klimková taking charge of theFootball Ferns again.
That’s the upshot of the announcement on Friday that Klimková would step aside for the Paris Olympics, after a consultative process with New Zealand Football (NZF).
While the carefully worded statement – which was intentionally released on a public holiday to limit the exposure – presents the situation as a temporary one - it’s difficult to see such a fix.
When Klimková was cleared by the independent workplace employment investigation earlier this month, after she missed the Japan series while the NZF review was taking place following a still-unspecified incident, NZF had said the Czech coach would be returning with immediate effect and at the helm for Paris.
But that always seemed like an unrealistic idea because the environment wasn’t going to be right.
The Herald understands there has been general dissatisfaction with Klimková from a cohort of the playing group since the end of the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup, where the Ferns gained a historic win over Norway but failed to advance into the knockout stages, mainly because of the shock 1-0 loss to the Philippines in Wellington.
There is always tension between coaches and players in any international team but this had progressively got worse and is believed to be mostly unrelated to the incident in June.
Despite efforts behind the scenes for months to find a fix, there hasn’t really been a way forward.
Football Ferns coach Jitka Klimkova will not lead the team into the Olympics this year. Photo / Photosport
It’s additionally complicated because of Klimková's massive six-year contract, which runs until the end of the 2027 Fifa Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
It was an unprecedented deal for NZF – no national coach, male or female, has ever been contracted beyond the length of a cycle – and has muddied the waters.
It’s also a delicate balancing act for NZF.
While Klimková's overall record has been poor, she did achieve the amazing Norway performance and has also brought through some exciting young talent. And Klimková took control of a playing group that had been generally underperforming for years, essentially since the 2016 Rio Olympics.
There have long been concerns about the culture and professionalism of the group, in an environment where some players began to take their selection for granted, and these were particularly pronounced after the 2019 World Cup campaign in France
Klimková was charged with changing the culture, which was always going to be challenging with such an entrenched group of senior players.
With so many questions in the air, it would have been a constant and considerable distraction before and during the Olympic campaign, something NZF couldn’t afford given the Ferns are already rank outsiders in their group, which features heavyweights France, Canada and Colombia.
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist since 2005, winning several national awards and covering Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns. He has also reported on the Warriors and NRL for more than a decade.
