Email in my box yesterday from Andy Martin justifying the Comet mess
The start of every winter season is a special time for all footballers
in New Zealand. This year has been met with the same passion and
commitment, but has been different in the registration process and we
want to thank all of the volunteers, the clubs and our Federations for
supporting a major system implementation in the past few months.
New Zealand Football, alongside our Federations, launched the new
Datacom Digital Framework to enhance the member experience and
ultimately bring football to anyone, anywhere and anytime. We know this
change has come with some challenges, but we believe the short-term pain
in the initial stages of this process will be significantly outweighed
by multiple benefits in the future.
New Zealand Football, our Federations and our clubs were operating in
an old system which had a dated shelf-life. Service levels were dropping
off and this was compromising the product we were able to deliver. The
changeover proved a lengthy process and has uncovered years of poor
quality information in the migrated data.
We needed to make a change and with the nature of football in this
country, there was never a good time to make this change. Our new system
places us in good stead going forward to meet the FIFA requirement for
every player to be registered. We now have a platform that is built for
the future and can adapt to the challenges of the digital environment we
now live in.
And there is more to come. New functionalities will continue to be
added to enhance the football experience and we are excited by the
prospect of where we will be able to take this digital experience.
While New Zealand Football has committed significant resource to this
change, we appreciate that much of the work has been driven by the
volunteer club administration workforce of our football community.
Across the country thousands of hours have gone into attending training
workshops, assisting members with how to register, developing club
products and online payments in the system and, of course, fielding the
frontline queries from parents and players.
At this point, we are delighted that registration numbers are
comparable to previous years despite considerable data cleansing taking
place during the migration. Thanks to all of you for the tremendous
service you continue to provide to football in New Zealand. Without you,
no one takes the field.
To all of our members, loyal and new, thank you for your patience and
commitment as we run through the implementation. We wish you good luck
for the season.