I think Ryan Nelsen's comments are serious and deserve a response. My own view is that he is both wrong and right.
In regard to his wrong comments, I think the Wellington Phoenix needs to be defended, and I hope that Tony P and Ricki will take the time to make a public rebuttal to these comments, which amount to serious, stinging and unfair allegations against the club.
Nelsen is in my opinion absolutely, totally wrong and misleading to suggest that the Phoenix have a first or primary obligation to develop NZ football, and to do so by employing (more) NZ players. To accuse the Phoenix of stifling New Zealand football's development and to lay the burden of responsibility for New Zealand football's advancement on the Phoenix is unreasonable and absent of good analysis and thought.
The Phoenix is a professional club in the business of sports entertainment. It competes against other sports which are also in the business of entertainment and, more generally, against other forms of entertainment. The Phoenix is primarily responsible to various stakeholders, foremost to its shareholder, the fans (which, rightly, it wants to grow), and the A-League. Unless the club is able to satisfy this set of stakeholders it will be doomed, which consequently, without any doubt, would ultmately be detrimental to NZ football. (On a broader note, where Nelsen states that the "role of the Australian League ... [is] to develop players for professional careers and to benefit Australian national teams", he is equally wrong, and the counter-argumentation with respect to the Phoenix also applies to Neilson criticism of the A-League.)
To be successful (and even to simply survive in the A-League), the Phoenix must, among other things, recruit the best players it possibly can. The reality is that NZ is well short of the football talent needed to run a club in the A-League with a squad predominantly made up of NZ players. Terry S, Tony P, and Ricki are intelligent, rational, professional operators. If there were NZ players 'out there' better than the current Australian or imported players, I'm sure they would have found them. That said, it should be noted that 11 of the current 21-man Phoenix squad (including Tony Lochhead) are NZ'ers.
On what basis is Nelsen "staggered that hardly any of his Oly-Whites teammates have Wellington Phoenix contracts"? How much of the A-League has he in fact watched? And, in particular, how knowledgable is he about the talent of the current Phoenix squad relative to his Oly-Whites teammates? One player he signals out as deserving of a Phoenix contract is Jeremy Brockie. Well the fact of the matter is that Brockie was previously given a tremendous opportunity of a professional career in the A-League and, for whatever reason(s), was unsuccessful. If he was good enough for the Phoenix (or some other A-League outfit), I'm sure the scouts would have spotted him by now and signed him to a contract. (This is not intended as a negative statement about Brockie (or, indeed, any other Oly-Whites player) - I hope in due course, given his young age, he does have the talent and perseverance to achieve as a professional footballer, whether that be with the Phoenix or elsewhere.)
Nelsen is also being hypocritical in making his accusations against the Phoenix. The English Premier League has got to be the worse example of domestic talent being forsaken for foreign players. Many of the EPL clubs hardly have any English players in their squads. The debate has raged for many years in England about the detrimental effect of this on the production of English talent and on the success of the national team in international competitions. Nelsen owes his spot at Blackburn to some English lad who has missed out. If he is true to his principles, as he promotes them in the media, is he willing to criticise Blackburn and the other EPL clubs for not sufficiently developing English players? Moreover, is he willing to sacrifice his spot at Blackburn in favour of an equally or better talented English player (and, to be sure, there will be many English players more than capable and happy to take his spot)? Would he be willing to see Blackburn employ less foreign players in favour of English-born players with the result that Blackburn could end up languishing in the relegation zone, which could, consequently, cost him a career in the EPL?
Additionally, Nelsen is wrong, in my view, about the Phoenix's decision not to release Tony Lochhead and Shane Smeltz for the Olympic Games. Neither player qualifies on the age criterion. Furthermore, the Olympic under-23 football tournament is not recognised as being of such stature in the football world as to require a FIFA window for releasing international players. Many European clubs have refused to release over-age players for the tournament and in some instances have even declined to release their under-23 players, despite FIFA insisting that they must do so. Really, the only question can be whether the Phoenix were morally obliged to release Lochhead and Smeltz. My personal feeling is that the Olympics is not big enough (from a football perspective) to warrant the Phoenix risking its own preparation for a very important second season in the A-League by releasing two important over-age players and that, in any case, NZ football would have been better served in terms of its development by sending only under-23 players to the tournament (e.g., it would have been better for NZ football if Greg Draper - a late draftee - and Costa Barbarouses were selected in the original under-23s squad).
It is also incorrect for Nelsen to accuse Ricki of having a conflict of interest in relation to his roles as the Phoenix coach and national coach. Ricki does have a potential conflict, but this is managed by FIFA allowing club competitions to be suspended when sanctioned internationasl (e.g., World Cup qualifying games) are played. In regard to selection of the national under-23s side, firstly, Ricki is not the coach and, secondly, he is not the sole (or even ultimate) decision maker at the Phoenix when it comes to staffing matters - the shareholder, board and chief executive no doubt have a significant say with respect to Phoenix business, including which players to release for under-23s international duty. In my eyes, the true stature of Ricki was his decision to promote Tony Lochhead for a possible career in the EPL with Middlesbrough, despite this not being in the best interests of the Phoenix. It is certainly in the interests of Lochhead, from both a personal and professional development perspective, and, if he is successful, there will be a tremendous spinoff for NZ football. It certainly proves to me that in supporting Ricki and Tony Lochhead on this matter, the Phoenix are a good employer, and are not entirely self-centred or self-serving.
Where Nelsen is absolutely right is in taking aim at New Zealand Football, although the Phoenix seems to be more in his sights. Football in this country will never develop or prosper as long as NZF's long-term strategy is to focus on the All Whites at the expense of the grassroots.
The focus of a long-term strategy needs to be on the grassroots, that is, on the kids and the coaches who are needed to train them, and on the facilities. As it is now, by the time the kids eventually make it into the All Whites, its too late because they are simply not good enough and, due to lack of earlier development, unlikely to ever be good enough. The absence of attention to the grassroots ('bottom-up' approach) is also in my opinion why the standard of football in the NZFC is generally absolutely appalling, as it also was in the national league through out the 1990s. More often than not it's a bore watching games in the NZFC, and that includes when the current top three teams play each other. The national league in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., the days when Ricki was playing in the national league) was far superior and more exciting to watch than the top NZ club competitions that came afterwards. In my view, this is mainly because the national league teams in the 'old days' consisted of many Brits who settled in NZ and who were half-decent players and coaches (and I say that not as a Brit, but as a born and bred Kiwi). Today the teams mainly comprise Kiwi lads who are simply not up to it, through no fault of their own. And by the time these lads get to play in the NZFC, it's generally too late for them to improve much either athletically, technically or in terms of nous about how to play the game - they are simply generally 'too old' for it by the time they hit their late teens and 20s. It will be the very rare player in my view who is able to progress from the youth squads and the NZFC to the A-League, if NZF does not take serious steps to develop the game. This is where Australia is much further ahead and superior, with its strong emphasis on youth development, which then feeds good State leagues and translates into professional football careers for many of its players.
Nelsen is right that the focus on developing the under-17s, 20s and 23s should take precedence over spending huge amounts of scarce money and other resources on teh All Whites. It's beyond the All Whites to popularise football in this country. In any case, football is already the greatest participation sport in NZ at the junior level (and it's certainly not due to the All Whites). Therefore, NZF (hopefully with the support of SPARC) needs to put in place a very long-term plan to develop football at the grassroots at all levels (juniors, coaches, facilities, etc.). It means investing in highly qualified coaches and trainers to coach and prepare athletically the kids and youth who will then progress to the Phoenix, other A-League clubs or further afield. It will take many years for the fruits to appear, but the end result will be far superior to concentrating on a tried and failed 'top-down' approach, unrealistically dreaming that the All Whites can provide us with instant glory and gratification.
