Apparently the clubs in Auckland have told NZ Football to "stick it" & are continuing to do what they were doing previously, which makes it rather difficult for them to administer & enforce any such edicts. It only takes the person who is driving this at NZ Football to leave & whoever takes over to have a different view & it all changes yet again - hopefully then sanity will prevail & normal transmission will resume.
If only licensed clubs could play at MPL level it would mean 50% of MPL get relegated & 50% of CCL get promoted, assuming a licensed club isn't propping up the MPL table at the end of the next few seasons & Western or Burwood etc don't win promotion or it could be an even higher percentage.
In a broader sense, club licensing as a concept comes from OFC and to them from Fifa.
Although when you hear some of the Fifa corruption stories it's really no surprise. Just waiting for the sex scandals to break now :)