I think I agree JD, but I also think it might be just the four of us on the pod and you that actually cares much. I'm interested to find out if there is a wider constituency that actually gives a f...
I do!
And I note that basically nobody posted in the Effecting Change at NZF for months, despite the fact that right now is the key period in time to be lining up potential candidates for the NZF Board and trying to influence their selection via Federations.
But yeah, actually nobody gives a fuck (or more correctly nobody gives a enough of a fuck to go through all that process in order to engineer a better outcome).
And also, I don't agree that the Federations don't represent Joe Average. OK, maybe they don't in practice, but they damn well should.
It's meant to be a democracy - players vote reps onto club boards - clubs vote reps onto Federation Boards - Federations vote reps onto the NZF Board.
They problem is that it's all a rather slow and laborious process to effect change right at the top and that wears people out and they end up not giving a fuck or not believing it possible.
But ultimately, if the players and other stakeholders give up on their democratic right to effect change then there won't be any change.
So yes, I think all stakeholders should feel free to speak out - individually or collectively - and NZ Football should listen because otherwise (although it may take a while) we are going to get rid of you.
Federations don't vote people onto the NZF board.
Yes they do. 3 of the 7 positions are elected by the Federations.
At the upcoming Congress 2 of the 3 elected positions are up for grabs. One appointed position will also be advertised.
This was all covered in excruciating detail in the "Effecting Change at NZF" thread.
Sorry, too sarcastic for my own good. What I meant was there's rarely a vote, because it's usually a done deal...
It's certainly true that the Federation Boards tend to look within their own ranks for nominees for the NZF Board and I'm not aware that there's been too many openly contested elections in past years (meaning the Feds tend to nominate the same number of people as their are vacancies - and there's a bit of pre-Congress horse-trading goes on).
Fed Boards have the same 4 appointed, 3 elected structure as the NZF Board so it would be interesting to know whether they have tended to nominate candidates for the NZF Board from their elected or appointed members in the past. Obviously the former would seem slightly more democratic than the latter.
I'm pretty sure Frank van Hattum was an elected Capital Federation Board member who then got nominated & elected to the NZF Board. He went from club to Fed (elected by club reps) to Fed Chairman (elected by Fed Board members) to NZF (elected by Fed reps) to NZF Chairman (elected by NZF Board members). Classic rise through the ranks and, at face value, completely democratic.
However, it's interesting that at no point did any rank and file NZF member (apart from at his own club) ever actually vote for Frank van Hattum. Most NZF members only ever get the opportunity to vote people onto their own club's committee (and most don't even take that opportunity). From that point on they can only try and influence the people who actually get to vote at different points in the process. Is that democracy?