The new club based format I give to last only a few years. Utterly dumb and will destroy football in the regions. Clubs merging already. NZ Football should change its name to Northern Football. So if you're in a regional centre and good, then you're going to have to move to Auckland to be noticed. Sadly the boffins in football management are blind & deaf and journos like Andrew Voerman are so naaive and ignorant. Its the death knell. I've already pulled my sponsorship and I know many others have. I'll become a Yellow Fever supporter now - thats all.
Bit harsh. But the new format is for sure going to make NZ Football even more Auckland centric, and that won't be a good thing for the South Island especially and other regions like Hawkes Bay. Younger promising players outside the 2 Wellington based academies, may just feel they have to move to the big smoke to get noticed.
I'd keep a little eye on whatever Slava Meyn has planned longer term in Christchurch, once Covid is hopefully gone from our lives.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/domestic/11...
Why is it going to make NZ Football even more Auckland centric? (if, indeed, it is Auckland-centric to a problematic extent)? Auckland is home to 1/3 of the country's population – and when you consider that it has 3x the population of the country's next biggest city, that naturally leads to a environment where it produces more good football clubs and players on a larger scale than that. 10 of the 38 clubs that are set to be at the national league start line in March are from Auckland, which is 27%, so if anything you could say it's under-represented.