KEY POINTS:
The dispute between the contracted New Zealand Knights players and New Zealand Soccer/Football Federation Australia threatens to become a bitter and messy wrangle.
The players contracted to the club under deals with the now former owners Octagon Sports are saying they want what they are due - in some cases through to the end of the 2007-08 season.
But they are now saying, through the Professional Footballers Association (of which almost all players are members), that it is up to the FFA as co-guarantors of those contracts to honour such arrangements.
Since the FFA revoked the Octagon Sports licence to play in the Hyundai A-League and called NZ Soccer in to help sort out the wrangle, the players have been caught in the crossfire.
Che Bunce, the Knights' representative on the PFA executive, boarded, but then left the flight to Melbourne on Saturday afternoon for what Brendan Schwab, the executive PFA chairman, said were "personal and health reasons" and a private matter.
"It has been an extremely stressful time for all players," said Schwab last night.
"The players were offered a virtual take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum on Friday when the issue came to a head.
Schwab said two things should happen if the matter is to be resolved.
"All outstanding payments should be met by the FFA which, following my discussions with new FFA chief executive Ben Buckley, appears likely and that the players will be able, as a very minimum, to play through until the end of the season.
"We need to have a firm commitment from the FFA that all contractual commitments will be met. We have reserved the players' legal rights in this. In this regard we understand that all outstanding payments will be met immediately. By that, I take it as first thing tomorrow.
"The cancellation of the licence is beyond the players' control. The threat on Friday was that if they did not sign a five-week contract with the FFA they would be replaced by hastily-recruited players," said Schwab. "The players wanted to play."
Knights captain Darren Bazeley was reluctant to discuss the situation but did say: "I definitely want to play for the Knights for the rest of the season and be at training on Tuesday.
"Hopefully we will have the opportunity to talk to [FFA operations manager] Matt Carroll at some stage and put our side of the story."
