NZ Football faces watershed moment

Phoenix supporters hold up a 'Ten More Years' sign relating to the team's application for a 10-year A-League licence extension. Photo / Getty Images.

Just when you thought the year couldn't get worse for football in New Zealand, it does.

Much worse, beyond imagining until the news landed with a horrendous thud this week.

Football - which battles from pillar to post at the top level - is facing a watershed moment. All the informed analysis says the Wellington Phoenix will be turfed out of the A-league, and in all likelihood at the end of this season.

Football Federation Australia hasn't got the guts to do the job properly itself. FFA might hand the Phoenix the chance to write a long suicide note in the form of a four-year licence, and use the lag to prepare a new club in Sydney. Thanks, but no thanks. The Phoenix will almost certainly pack up shop, rather than wave goodbye for four years.

On the face of it, Australian football has the right to look after its own backyard, which in this case means they have decided to turn down the Wellington club's request for a 10 year licence. And yes, four football codes compete in a tough environment across the ditch where there is little room for sentiment. And for all of the club's good work, the crowds in Wellington have not been good.

There is another way of looking at Australian football's relationship with New Zealand however.

The Aussies are benefiting from an international sporting rort, when FIFA allowed them to quit Oceania and join the far more powerful and dynamic Asian conference. Australia is many things, but it is not in Asia. In hindsight, why didn't FIFA peel off a few Asian teams and put them in the Oceania zone, to create two decent conferences? Seriously.

With Australia quitting Oceania, New Zealand was left in what is effectively a football ghetto, no offence intended to our conference comrades. (And comrades is a loose term, because the rest of Oceania isn't impressed by New Zealand football's condescending attitude towards them.)

Maybe the Sports Minister Jonathan Coleman should zoom back from the rugby World Cup with sirens wailing, to lend gravitas to the Phoenix's fight for survival. Sport is a big part of our national life, and so is the need for diversity. And rugby is becoming all consuming.

I suspect that in reality, less publicised and more individual pursuits are actually taking over from team sports. People I know love skiing, fishing, surfing, biking etc etc and many don't give a fig about the sports which dominate the media, or not for most of the time. Quite a few friends and colleagues are more interested in American sport and the English Premier League than they are in what goes on downunder.

But football, the world game, is still a big part of our society, and women's football is a particularly strong growth area. The game deserves a profile.

The Phoenix have under performed in the main, fallen well short of potential, and betrayed the promise of that wonderful late-season drama five years ago.

But they are still a key part of the sporting landscape here, letting us see some of our best players first hand, bringing the influence of overseas professionals such as Paul Ifill to our shores both as players and in other ways, offering kids a professional home or a stepping stone, giving domestic football its only consistent chance of reasonable exposure, and also being a lot of fun to watch. Under Ernie Merrick, they have tried to play a really good brand of football.

Lose the Phoenix, and our A-league participation is gone forever is the guess, with two Auckland franchises having already sunk. I hope the club's battle for survival doesn't occur without a fight, a lot of publicity, and enough controversy to make the FFA have a re-think. The Phoenix still have the makings of an excellent club.

The really exciting but long shot solution, to offset this disaster, would be for New Zealand to join FIFA's Asian conference (which might be split to accommodate this). The All Whites need high profile, dramatic World Cup qualification games. I've heard suggestions Australia might offer NZF international friendlies, but that will achieve diddly-squat.

As for the A-league situation: having been allowed to quit Oceania and leave New Zealand to rot, I would contend Australia does actually owe us. But I fear this is going to end badly, in a whimper. And that will be a crying shame.