Dana Johannsen: Rules all that matter in fight for shooter

Cathrine Latu in action for the Mystics. Photo / Getty Images

The debate whether former Samoan shooter Cathrine Latu should be included in the Silver Ferns' world championship team has been clouded by emotive arguments.

"Netball New Zealand are bullies," claims one commentator; "Poaching players from all over the place to form a world-beating team," cries another, pointing to the cases of Irene van Dyk, Leana de Bruin and Sheryl Scanlan as further evidence of Netball NZ's underhandedness.

Forget van Dyk, de Bruin and Scanlan, their cases are irrelevant.

The discussion should centre on one thing and one thing only: wording of the rules versus intent.

To recap: IFNA has previously ruled that the Auckland-born Latu is not eligible to play for her country of birth until after the world championships. A player cannot represent two different countries at successive world champs.

But Netball NZ says a precedent was set when IFNA allowed former Silver Ferns defender Vilimaina Davu to play for Fiji at the 2007 world champs, a year after she represented New Zealand, and has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

On that basis Netball NZ certainly has strong grounds to mount a case.

The rulebook states the IFNA board may approve exceptions where players are returning to their place of birth.

"May" does not mean "will" or "must". But IFNA have shot themselves in the foot by creating a discretionary rule and Netball NZ was right to ask the question in Latu's case.

But after 18 months of asking the question and getting knocked back with no explanation, Netball NZ clearly became frustrated with IFNA and sought an independent view.

IFNA's answer of "no, because we say so" isn't going to cut it in Lausanne. They need to show some transparency around their processes, which they have thus far failed to do.

But regardless of how clumsy the wording, the original intent of the rule is clear - it was designed to give smaller netball nations a leg up.

New Zealand, the No 1 netball nation in the world according to the latest rankings released in February, clearly don't fit into that category. But it is up to IFNA to argue in legal terms why Latu is not eligible for exemption.

One thing is clear: for Netball New Zealand to go to such extremes to get Latu on their side is not a good look and it will cost them the good will of the international netball community.