New Zealand’s national men’s and women’s football leagues will be held this year, but it remains to be seen who will be involved and what form they will take.
The governing body said on Wednesday it had received $900,000 from Sport NZ to support those competitions and its national futsal leagues, but offered few details except to say the timing of them would be confirmed later this month.
Exactly which teams will take part is still to be determined, with entry fees and formats in the process of being finalised. The support from Sport NZ should help ease some financial burdens, but many of the clubs, franchises, and regional federations that comprise the two leagues were already struggling before the pandemic hit.
A three-stage competitions review that began in 2014 was completed last November, outlining a vision for a national men’s league that ran from November to May and involved 10 teams playing a full home-and-away season before splitting into a top six and a bottom four, with a convoluted system of promotion and relegation to and from regional leagues taking place every four years. Those changes were meant to be put in place later this year, but have now been put on hold.
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The National Women’s League had expanded to a full home-and-away season in 2018 and its format was not due to change again until a New Zealand team was entered in Australia’s W-League. That is expected to take place in the near future, with the successful trans-Tasman bid to host the Women’s World Cup in 2023 paving the way for a Wellington Phoenix entry potentially as soon as next season.
Both leagues are likely to come under the microscope as the Football in New Zealand Review gathers steam in the coming months.
It is understood NZ Football’s executive committee was meeting on Wednesday night to discuss the national leagues and finalising plans for them for 2020 is among the organisation’s most pressing tasks now that regional football has returned and the trans-Tasman bid to host the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup has been successful.
The national men’s league is likely start in November, as originally scheduled, but it is understood the entry fee will be reduced from $30,000, as it was last season, to at most $20,000, though there are teams for whom that might still be too much. The league is also in need of a naming rights sponsor, with ISPS Handa’s three-year deal expiring at the end of last season.
Stuff has seen a memo from NZ Football which puts the cost of holding semifinals and a grand final at $40,000 and that looms as an area where savings could be made, though it could also lead to a lack of motivation for some teams in the latter stages of the season if there is a runaway leader.
Auckland City are the defending champions, having been top of the table when the 2019-20 season was cancelled in March as New Zealand went into lockdown.
The biggest issue for the federation-based National Women’s League this year is the number of free weekends between the end of the regional winter leagues, which were rescheduled due to Covid-19, and Christmas.
Premier women’s competitions in Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin are only scheduled to end the last weekend of September, a month later than normal, which means there are 13 days for matches available, including two at Labour Weekend, when 15 are needed.
A temporary return to a single round-robin, plus one or two finals matches, would allow players to have a break at the end of winter, while ensuring they aren’t forced to make a commitment into 2021, which would likely result in some deciding to give the national league a miss.
Canterbury United Pride are the reigning champions, having won five of the last seven finals.
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