I posted the below (italics) two months ago.
Only thing I was wrong about was the women's team, as they have had their surge. Which is great to see but I feel might save a few of the heads that I think need to roll. (and we could potentially still make the finals on the men's but need to have our new manager bounce quickly).
Since then we've lost our 6th derby in perhaps our most embarassing ever defeat, crowd sizes hasn't recovered, and Chiefy's finally gone. (Which by the way, we got told we had short memories for complaining about re-signing Chiefy, and the 'Chiefy Out' banner was photoshopped for 'Chiefy In' too in the announcement of this, that example plus the recent complaints around a lack of fan engagement shows where their priorities are).
I'm sorry but the club has to have a massive shake-up. The club is at the lowest point in history and something needs to change. In the past 24 months or so the club has:
- Reappointed Chiefy after an awful season where the whole of his backroom staff and all but 2 players from the semi-final squad jumped ship. All will have different reasons but when there's smoke there's fire.
- Lost in a competitive off-the-pitch process to an amateur club to get into the OFCPL which would have finally given us the opportunity to make it to the FIFA CWC.
- Achieved record low crowds.
- Gone 0-5 in NZ derbys.
- Despite extra investment this season in the women's team they're outside even the playoff spots (still a bit of the season to go, sure)
- Another year of no finals football - I don't see us better than 6 other teams in the ALM even when injuries return.
Yes, there's lots of excuses/reasons to defend these, but these just enable the status quo, which seems to be a downward spiral. We need change before this becomes a genuine existential crisis for the club. It genuinely feels like a humiliation ritual watching this club right now.
I don't have much to say about the owners, they're throwing money at the club for no ROI, but yes we probably need more investors however this seems unlikely. But the powers that be (Domey, Gilly) have gotten complacent being the big fish in the small pond after their many years at the club, and have been caught with their pants down when Auckland FC have come in and done pretty much everything right. Yes - AFC have a lot more money than us, but are we making the most out of the resources we do have? Is that just another excuse enabling the status quo downwards spiral?
Go to your local Wellington club and ask about what they think about the Phoenix, even 10ish years after the Nix have been integrated into the NZ pathway there's still some pretty broken relationships between the Nix and local clubs. Like I said, they're used to being the big fish in the small pond and throw their weight around. AFC came in and collaborated with clubs and tried their best not to step on toes and generally have support from all local clubs in their area. I don't think you need to be a billionaire to be able to relationship manage.
Our Director of Football, to my understanding doesn't have any technical experience. He was an internal 'promotion' from an administrator (Ops Manager) to a technical position (DOF). I've said this before but compare this to the JAFAs, their director of football was a former player, coach and player agent, and has his masters in Coach Education and a UEFA A Licence. Yes, this one can be a money issue, but in the past we've afforded to through 200k+ a year for individual players that come and go, why not invest in getting the foundations of the club right too?
I say all this because I genuinely love this club, but I'm genuinely worried about where it's headed. I've lost faith in the leadership of the club. They've given a lot to a club, but we need to start fresh. Especially if neither team make the play-offs, Chiefy needs to go, Gilly needs to go, Domey needs to go.
