KEY POINTS:
Changest to New Zealand Football's board can't be made until June - resulting in an uneventful emergency meeting last Thursday - but there is still speculation that current chairman John Morris may opt to resign.
There had been predictions the meeting between NZF's board and the seven federations
over NZF's financial losses would be a fiery encounter, resulting in calls for Morris and chief executive Graham Seatter to resign. But all parties emerged talking about how positive the experience had been.
"Everyone was pretty open about change," NZF deputy chairman Fred de Jong said. "But if you throw out a whole lot of people now, does that help the situation? If the federations want a change of direction, they have every right to do that in June.
"Instead, everyone came to the meeting looking for answers and how to get us out of this situation."
It's understood the meeting chairman and NZF president Nick Davidson met with federation representatives before the meeting and told them they couldn't effect change unless it was at a congress or AGM and that, out of respect to Morris' personal situation following the death of his mother, the issue of chairman should be left alone.
It's debatable whether Morris will seek re-election in June and one source believed he would announce his intention to stand down before then.
As many as five board members are up for re-election at the June congress, with only Frank van Hattum and Phil Johnson assured of their positions.
By that time, the full extent of NZF's finances will be established. As the Herald on Sunday reported last week, the expected loss for 2007 is likely to be about $450,000, significantly less than the $834,000 figure leaked last month.
Federation 2 chairman Mark Aspden, who was also co-opted on to the NZF board on Thursday, said the expectation released officially - that losses would be $250,000 less than the $834,000 - was itself conservative. "There's a reasonable degree of confidence that the revised figure is a worst-case scenario," he said.
Yet, there is a realisation that something needs to change to arrest four consecutive years of losses. While this is not uncommon in modern sport, it is unsustainable.
"Short term, we are trying to find some funding quickly ... and we have been talking to Sparc who are trying to help," de Jong said.
"Long term, we have to look at our whole funding model and some of the remedies might be more painful. If you can't generate more revenue, then you have to cut some stuff like our international activity. While we don't want to go back to playing five or six [games a year], we might not be able to do everything because then we go bust," he said.
A four-person committee made up of two NZF board members and two federation representatives should be in place in the next fortnight. This is being set up as an intermediary group between the board and the federations.
