Last week, the board of Western Springs Association Football Club and 25 players from the women’s premier team signed a game-changing agreement to end a four-month stand-off. It has the potential to reset community-level sport around the country, writes Bonnie Jansen.
Western Springs Football Club is bigger than any other community sports club in the country.
With 2600 members, they’re successful on all fronts: they excel at the top level, host a diverse range of teams and abilities, and have more kids in the 8th grade than many rugby clubs have across all levels.
However, amid the success, the club’s board somehow dropped the ball, which almost left the club without a women’s team.
With New Zealand about to host the Fifa Women’s World Cup – and with the Norwegian side booked to use Springs’ facilities at Seddon Fields as a training ground – allegations from the club’s premier women’s team surfaced publicly. The women’s top team, which last year came second in the Premier League, spoke of “a boy’s club” with “highly misogynistic” behaviours at the sports grounds nestled between the suburbs of Point Chevalier and Westmere.
The discontent had been aired internally at the club months earlier, with the female players trying to work through their concerns behind closed doors. They wrote to club leadership asking for transparency of budgets and decision-making; nothing was resolved and the relationship between the players and the board soured.
When the players felt their concerns were being ignored, they protested. Pre-match warm-ups saw them don T-shirts with the word “equality” emblazoned across the front. In one game, players asked for their names to be removed from match-day programmes and social media graphics, instead simply saying “forward” or “defender”.
The club unexpectedly dumped the team’s head coach Ryan Faithfull. He had supported the players in their stance. The players responded with threats of a mass exodus.
Knowing it would be devastating to lose a successful top women’s team in the Auckland competition, lawyers were called in on both sides for mediation.
Following mediation, hours of meetings, phone calls, tears and support from governing bodies, the club and players have come out the other side, reaching agreement. Western Springs leads the pack for football clubs once again – but with a change of mindset that sees their women get equal opportunity.
The agreement brings a massive and long overdue culture change for not only this club but the wider New Zealand football.
It also lays bare the responsibility of volunteers and committees at sports clubs and has implications for those who run clubs up and down the country.
At the end of a three-month mediation process between club and players, both sides said the decision to bring in former CEO of the NZ Olympic Committee, Kereyn Smith, to oversee the implementation of changes agreed on in mediation will ensure the exhausting exercise was worth it.
The appointment was funded by Northern Region Football (NRF) and New Zealand Football (NZF).
NRF’s chief executive Laura Menzies said having an independent person would “help them sit through it and navigate over the next four months and to start to make some of that change they’ve committed to”.
Menzies will act as a conduit between the women’s premier team and the club.
NZF told the Herald they “welcome the progress seen from mediation and will continue to support Northern Region Football to help achieve a positive resolution for the players and club”.
And though the offer isn’t available to all clubs throughout the northern region, Menzies has ensured they’ll continue to support clubs on a case-by-case.
There were a number of issues female club members raised to the Herald: the patronising nature of the predominantly male board; wanting transparency with their budget and resourcing decisions; having a player representative on the board; and changing the inappropriate-looking logo.
Players felt these concerns were justified, despite how big the gap between males and females may be closing. It’s no secret that inequality exists in sport, across clubs and codes globally – but when a women’s team threatens a walkout because of it, the issue is brought to life at a local level. Likewise, when female volunteers down tools for the same injustice.
Western Springs wouldn’t have been the only club in this position, nor would their women’s team have been the only group of female players around the country team with similar feelings. But they were the first to plan a walkout at this level.
The standoff reflected women’s position in the sporting arena, but also the power they have when unified to make a change.
The women told the Herald their teams would often be the “last choice” for training and they felt their involvement in the inaugural New Zealand competition last year was treated as more of a “hassle” for the club rather than an opportunity.
“It was like they were doing us a favour,” one player said.
“The board has completely come at the team from a place of how they view gender personally and whatever influences they’ve had on throughout their lives,” a player said. “Because if they had the slightest belief that women were equal, we would not be getting treated like this.”
“I’m just f...ing disappointed.”
Senior players said Faithfull had supported their calls for equity and was “turned into the scapegoat” for their actions.
A woman who served in a leadership role at the club quit her committee position over dissatisfaction with the treatment of women. “They had such a male lens across everything,” she told the Herald.
“It felt pretty patronising,” said the woman. “For me, it felt like: ‘Just go away – you’re annoying us’, from the heads of the committees at the club.”
A common theme of the club’s messaging throughout the disputes was the fact the club board is essentially volunteers – and that sometimes they get it wrong.
In a statement posted to their website, they said: “Despite our size as one of the largest sporting clubs in New Zealand, we’re largely run by volunteers.”
Western Springs chairman Grant Ramsay told the Herald: “We’re a good club. We’ve got great people – run by great volunteers and coaches and staff – who do the best they can with the time they have.
“You know, they all have day jobs and other things to do. These big clubs running on a voluntary basis, representing, reflecting community values, it’s something we aspire to do and we’re pretty good at it actually.”
Kirsten Patterson, chief executive of the Institute of Directors, suggested this could have implications for people at sports clubs throughout New Zealand.
She said volunteers could still be held to professional standards, particularly in relation to financial management and governance. “Non-for-profit governance has many or most of the same obligations that we would consider for commercial governance.”
“It’s really important that the directors are focused on leading the organisation well and thinking about all of the stakeholders that can impact on the organisation.
“Particularly, diversity does make a real difference for organisations and needs to be a focus,” said Patterson.
“[Sports clubs are] really critical, important to New Zealand’s communities and to the fabric of our society. But they are, as volunteers, carrying heavy workloads. For most, getting access to training etc can be really difficult.”
The walkout was a bad look for the club, and also for NRF, who had to postpone a Lotto NRFL fixture because of it.
Though serious concerns had been raised as early as March, NRF wasn’t aware of the severity until about the day before the Herald published the initial report on May 13.
Menzies, the NRF chief executive, said they offered support at this point in the breakdown, however, it was denied. It wasn’t until a week into June, that they were asked by the club: “Would you mind coming to join the mediation?” Which they did as a third party.
Menzies said the club realised they were at an “impasse”.
“There were some really good commitments on both sides, but there was still some stuff that they needed a bit of support to work through and they thought that a third party might help them just sort of get the agreement across the line.
“They’re all busy people and I think they’d been going on a long time and they just got pretty fatigued. They just needed sort of a fresh injection of energy as much as anything else,” she said.
“Yes, there was a sense that they need some support to not only get the agreement across the line but also to help the agreement be enacted after it was signed.”
When board members broke their silence, they told the Herald they didn’t believe there was necessarily a fault in their treatment of female players – but said their communications had been poor.
In a joint statement from the club and players at the end of mediation, the club acknowledged there had “been issues” and apologised for “failures in communication and understanding that contributed to the situation”.
Grant Ramsay acknowledged there was a “misstep” on the board’s part in the conflict when players began raising concerns in March.
He said the general messaging to club members has indicated “some miscommunications and misunderstandings” and issues that haven’t been dealt with adequately.
“The club had plans to do lots of these things and we’d already started things around the constitution and strategy work.
“Certainly, the women’s team made it clear to us they wanted to go faster.” Ramsay said there had been “lots of stress and pressure on club members through that period”.
“Possibly we didn’t get to some of these things as quick as we would have liked,” he said.
Tracy Cunnington, another member of the club executive committee, said: “We thought we were doing good – we obviously weren’t doing good enough.”
Western Springs will be closing their clubrooms next week to their members as they prepare to host Norway for the Fifa Women’s World Cup.
The club had been criticised for dropping its guard on gender equity while receiving almost $500,000 of public money for facilities upgrades ahead of the Women’s World Cup.
But Cunnington is proud of Western Springs’ record: “Fifa and Norway chose Western Springs Football Club, not just for the facilities but for what we have put into the women’s and girls’ game over the last few years and we’ve got 25 per cent girls that play at this club and much the same in the senior space as well.
“So we’re growing the girls’ game and I’d imagine that’s probably been quite important to them as well.”
The club remains at pains to point out it had introduced initiatives to grow the women’s game in the years before this row exploded. There was a head of women’s football, a girls’ only skill centre, policies to ensure equal access to facilities and more coaches to develop youth girls among other changes, the clubs says.
However, the terms of the mediation settlement indicate there was still ground to make up, with the club committing to addressing these issues.
Western Springs player and Football Fern legend Maia Jackman was the first to congratulate the club on committing to these changes: “It felt like a long time – but it’s actually a short time and they’ve come to the party on a lot of things.”
A notable issue left out of new deliverables was an update on the club logo that players felt had phallic parallels.
The emblem that features a swan sitting on two large balls is supposedly “a well-known story around the club and it’s a joke”, one player told the Herald ahead of the mediation.
“We have little girls running around the club with [that] on their shirts,” a player said.
Ramsay said hearing these concerns was “upsetting” to a lot of older club members.
“The way it’s been represented has been again hurtful to lots of members and life members and longstanding members in the club.
“I’ve been associated with the club for over 20 years. I hadn’t recognised or noticed any of those sorts of interpretations.”
He did, however, say there would be future discussions on this matter, stating there’s “a significant cost and effort to change a club’s logo”.
The club recognised the travails of recent months had been an “unsettling time for members”.
Ramsay said the ongoing disputes and many hours of meetings have been “a very difficult time for the club”, taking its toll on individuals, volunteers, staff and coaches.
“Family and jobs have taken a back seat,” he said. “The club has had to keep running through all of this and there’s lots of things that we haven’t been able to do as a result of being focused on the mediation process.”
Cunnington said a few members “have obviously raised eyebrows, raised a few questions. But a few that actually said, [they] don’t quite believe [what the women’s team alleged].”
Players from the women’s premier team said the situation had taken a “massive emotional toll”.
However, by getting through what Western Springs describes as “a bump in the road”, they’ve set a standard for other local clubs around New Zealand.
All parties involved mainly see the “rollercoaster” experience as a positive.
“It’s great for football,” said Menzies. “I really hugely acknowledge the club and the team for working this out and for doing all the hard work to get them to a point where they’ve shared something hugely positive for football, which will make a big difference.
“Like, obviously they’ve been through this really hard time, but now you could kind of confidently say that they’re one of the clubs leading the way, they definitely can be.”
The joint statement from the club and players said the number of changes agreed on “are all about making sure Western Springs sets the standard for not just football clubs in Auckland but for sports clubs nationwide”.
But equally, it’s a lesson learned.
Ramsay said, “We don’t want all clubs to get like that, to that point.
“We’re happy to sit down and share, share what we’ve learned and, and how things have happened to us and, and what we plan to do in the future, more than happy to do that. But, I guess each club and each code is at a different point in a different stage and they’ll need to find their own way through that.”
Players told the Herald they’re “proud” to be out the other side of a successful mediation, feeling they’ve “changed New Zealand football forever”.
“It’s never an easy fight to have to fight for something simply because you’re a woman,” one player says. “But on reflection and looking back, we’re all going to be stronger for it.”
TIMELINE:
December 2021: Western Springs sign a Development Funding Agreement, meaning the club receives almost $500,000 of public money for facility upgrades ahead of the Women’s World Cup.
Early 2023: Women’s premier players grow angry about treatment, conditions and inequitable resources.
March 15: Players send a letter to the board asking for transparency and to meet.
March 20: Players receive a letter in response from the club board.
Late March to May: Female board members, staff and volunteers leave the club. Players feel upset they are not being heard and can’t reach an agreement with the club. They begin protesting.
May 11: Head coach Ryan Faithfull, who sided with the players, is let go from the club.
May 12: Players talk to the Herald about the situation. The Herald contacts the club’s senior chairman Tony Jones, who did not want to comment.
May 13: The Herald files initial reports that top premier players will leave the club following ongoing disputes and the departure of Faithfull.
May 21: Players refuse to play and Northern Region Football postpones the match.
May 28: Players return to play but wear a different, unbranded uniform.
May 30: Mediation between players and club board begins, continuing for 12 hours.
June 9: Western Springs play their Lotto NRFL round nine fixture against Northern Rovers – however, there are disputes in the lead-up to it and players involved in mediation are stood down. A successful mediation at this point is doubtful.
June 18: The women’s premier team has a Kate Sheppard Cup win against former champions Auckland United, and the players sign a positive agreement with the board.
Bonnie Jansen is a Multimedia Journalist in the NZME Sports team. She has prior experience working for the Alternative Commentary Collective and the Te Rito journalism cadetship. Bonnie is a keen footballer and passionate about women’s sport.
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