So you would define progressive as advancing the club essentially, which CFA may or may not have done. Short term possibly. Long term possibly not.
I would define progressive as advancing the game, which when we come down to it is the bottom line for clubs. It is why we exist. CFA has no interest in advancing the game. It is all about the business and the ego of one man.
You are correct, money has been in the game for a long time and there are other clubs who have been drawn into that idiocy, to their detriment. However, CFA has taken it to a whole new level and no one can convince me turning an amateur (and it is that) environment into a marketplace is good for the game here. All it does is draw money from already cash strapped clubs into the pockets of players and away from where it needs to go - youth, infrastructure and community. It just isn't sustainable and will draw the ire of other clubs who just can't compete with those sorts of resources - nor should they even try. What a waste. The players aren't even that good (sorry guys).
You refer to the NZ model as broken, but take a look around fella. That is where we live. It would be more accurate to say the current model is broken. It is up to clubs and Mainland (and NZF) to develop a NZ model that works for our context and culture. Borrowing the current model used by some established football nations in Europe, and plonking it in the middle of rugby-mad Canterbury, with no regard for other clubs, simply will not work. We don't have the numbers, the resources or the capacity to sustain it.
So you can hardly complain when many of us may laugh when CFA suddenly comes asking for support when it suits them. What nonsense. Time for a reality check. It is just ridiculous. "We are collaborative". But we will head hunt all your top youth talent (sometimes offering money for god's sake) because we are arrogant enough to think we can do it better than everyone else. "We want your support", but we will buy all the best players we can at a price no one else can compete with "We want to help", but we will make the national league (even though no other club's support it) and then the A-League (lmao) come hell or high water. However we can. Because in the end, it is all about us.
And then someone from the club has the temerity to come on here and ask us to get behind them in the Chatham Cup! Please.