The Football Ferns Aren't Getting Enough Games... And That’s Just The Start Of It
This article was supposed to be a recap of the Football Ferns tour of Chinese Taipei... but in the end there was nothing to recap. The squad amassed upon the scene. Hopefully they got some good training sessions in. But they never got to play a game and the tour just kinda fizzed out with players returning to their clubs. It was less than ideal... and made worse by the fact that this team had already skipped two of the previous three windows. Following the Olympics, the Ferns didn’t play in either the October or November 2024 with the stated reason from NZF being that they’d had a busy couple years and a pause was overdue. Okay, fair enough. But now they’ve gotten nothing out of the April 2025 window either.
Unfortunately, there are a few too many of these setbacks affecting the Football Ferns lately. Most of them make sense in isolation but then you pile them all on top of each other and it’s hard not to feel a bit uneasy about things. The Ferns did get two solid games in against Costa Rica in February so that was nice. But by the time they’re next able to play – and as it stands they have no games scheduled for the May-June window – our women’s senior national side will have only played those two competitive international fixtures across a span of ten months.
There were good reasons for the cancellations in Taiwan but those reasons highlight another issue. First off, they were only going to play one capped international anyway. There were two games scheduled, however the first was going to be a training game with unlimited subs and whatever. They’re breaking in a new formation (even though there’s no guarantee that the coach will see another tour – Michael Mayne is only an interim... more on that soon) so the extra practice would have been helpful. But closed-door games are pesky at the best of times and this one came at the expense of a proper fixture for a team that hasn’t been getting very many of those lately. Alas, that training game was canned because of “safety concerns over the pitch” and the proper game was due to be played at the same venue so you know what happened next.
NZF: “The stadium staff have worked to improve the pitch since issues were first raised, but unfortunately, in its current condition, New Zealand Football have had to prioritise player welfare and call off the match, as it is unsuitable and unsafe to play on. Alternative venues were sought immediately when concerns were raised, but no suitable grass pitch options were available, so unfortunately the match has had to be called off.”
Respect for prioritising grass pitches. Artificial turf can vary quite a lot and the harder surface is a proven injury risk. When factoring in all the travel that kiwi players have to do, there’s no reason for them to be playing on plastic-coated concrete... nor is this a complaint limited to New Zealanders. Ten years ago, there was major push-back when Canada hosted the World Cup in 2015 with most games being played on artificial turf. FIFA managed to avoid the courtroom over that despite a player collective threatening a discrimination lawsuit... but, tellingly, the governing body later made it a stipulation that the 2023 WC could only be hosted by nations with natural pitches. Who ended up hosting that tournament? Oh yeah, we did (along with Australia).
Chinese Taipei happens to be a small country with a large population and therefore limited venues. Many of those venues are artificials. Now, the Ferns were clearly prepared to play on turf if it were up to standard because they agreed to these games in the first place. The Chinese Taipei Football Association’s own statement made that clear. These bits were particularly interesting...
“After the New Zealand team arrived in Taiwan, they conducted several on-site inspections and meetings with our association and the venue regarding the site conditions, and also clearly put forward suggestions such as re-laying the turf. The venue immediately deployed additional staff during the Qingming Festival holiday, fully cooperated with the turf reinforcement work, and tried its best to complete the relevant improvement project. However, after an overall assessment by the New Zealand team, they chose not to participate in this event.
The only venues in the country that meet international competition standards are the Taipei Track and Field Stadium and the Kaohsiung National Stadium. When the venues were being arranged last year, both locations were unable to provide venues due to scheduled activities.”
You know where there’s an abundance of lush, lovely grass football pitches? In Aotearoa/New Zealand. This would not have been a problem if we’d hosted these matches. The Ferns last played in NZ back in April 2024 for a pair of games against Thailand in Christchurch and, of the 19 international fixtures that NZ has played since the World Cup mid-2023, those were the only two held in home conditions. Sure, we did get a good run of home fixtures leading into the World Cup, with 12/14 games in NZ between November 2021 and July 2023... but that was an anomaly because they’d only played one home game in six-and-a-half years prior to that run (out of 69 total games).
That lone home game was the 3-1 loss to Japan in Wellington that led to Andreas Heraf getting exposed and fired – providing another benefit to playing at home. Connecting with the fans, allowing players who are usually based overseas to play in front of friends and whanau, and building hype around the team are all massively important. We’re seeing that with the All Whites who themselves had only played 3/41 games at home until some World Cup qualifiers (plus a friendly against Malaysia) turned that round with their last five straight in Aotearoa. The All Whites are a bigger factor in kiwi sports right now than they have been for years, not since the last time they made a World Cup have they had such a grasp on the kiwi zeitgeist. World Cup qualification is the main reason for that... yet would it have been the same if they’d qualified with a run of games away in Vanuatu or the Solomon Islands? Probably not. Because it’s not merely the prize, it’s also the access and the visibility of the team during those windows. The Football Ferns are stuck out of sight and out of mind at the moment, missing out on that relevancy boost, and also missing out on the accountability factor that comes with that attention. The accountability factor that led to Heraf’s disgrace.
The lack of home games is a pesky annoyance. The lack of overall games is more of an irritation. But what’s really concerning is that there seem to be multiple issues piling up all at once. Things that individually might simply be seen as the ebbs and flows of any national team but which added together begin to provide a pattern. Another example is the coaching sitaution.
These Chinese Taipei games were supposed to be Michael Mayne’s final audition for the full-time gig. He did also have the Olympics plus the tours on either side of them so it’s not like he’s been left completely stranded, though it was only this trip and the Costa Rica one where he was working with his own staff. It did kinda seem like Mayne was being given licence well beyond what an interim would usually get, and there’s a precedent with Darren Bazeley getting the All Whites job in similar fashion, so perhaps this might be part of the pattern too. We don’t know. But the bigger issue is that this team does not currently have a head coach, and it has been many moons since they last did.
Jitka Klimkova’s bad results were a little bit overstated when compared to the history of the Ferns... but once she lost the dressing room there was nothing to cling on to. The perception of her as a coaching imbecile was silly but that also doesn’t make her a coaching genius. The reality is somewhere in between. She was an average coach who failed to raise the level of the team as far as was hoped so when it got to the point where the players didn’t like her, seemingly on top of some cultural disconnect and the lack of on-field success, she simply had to go. Yet New Zealand Football kept her around on gardening leave (both times she withdrew from tours it was presented as her decision), continuing to talk about reintegration processes. Nah, mate. The horse had bolted. This was not a situation worth saving.
But because they got weird about it, the Football Ferns had to go to a major tournament with an interim coach (they lost all three games... though played okay considering the strength of their group). The “independent workplace investigation” began in April 2024 however Klimkova only finally resigned in September 2024. Six months of limbo. Employment issues (and possible payouts) may have slowed things down in that case but how about the fact that it’s been a further six months since September and there’s still no replacement? Jitka Klimkova hasn’t had any worries, she was hired as the new Czech Republic head coach back in January. Meanwhile we’re still in stuck in the in-between.
It’s through this lens that some of the selections have to be interrogated a little deeper too. It’s no secret that player unrest (although we don’t know the cause thus can’t make judgements) led to the Jitka Klimkova dramas. Next thing... well, not really the next thing because they took two windows off after the Olympic campaign... but the next time the squad got together after Klimkova’s actual exit, several senior players were conspicuously absent. Not only from the Costa Rica tour but also the Chinese Taipei one. No Katie Bowen, no CJ Bott, no Rebekah Stott. None were injured, none were said to be unavailable. The implication was that they wanted to begin a new cycle by expanding the depth beneath the established first eleven... although Mayne didn’t ever seem able to explain that directly when given the opportunity. Was that perhaps not his decision at all? Were those players perhaps being punished for their role in JK’s exit? This feels like conspiratorial thinking so let’s not go too deep down the rabbithole. But in light of all these other dramas we’re not in a position to entirely shrug such things off.
The squad yarns for each of these tours (Costa Rica and Chinese Taipei) dug into the specifics of who was selected and who wasn’t. We can pick holes in the “expanding the depth” idea but most of that would just be differing opinions on who deserves to be there. Kelli Brown, Maya Hahn, Manaia Elliott, and Emma Pijnenburg all got deserving debuts against Costa Rica. Jana Radosavljevic and Grace Wisnewski earned recalls for Chinese Taipei while Maggie Jenkins and Deven Jackson were again overlooked. Gabi Rennie and Ally Green have been dropped, which you could say was due to being out-of-season at club level but that clearly didn’t apply to Milly Clegg or Meikayla Moore. Emerging overseas pros like Kiara Bercelli, Olivia Page, Suya Haering, and Jana Niedermayr might have fitted the future-planning idea but they were nowhere to be seen. This is international football though. Everyone’s going to have their own ideas and as long as a coach is consistent, open-minded, and honest about it then that’s how it goes. Any New Zealand professional doing good enough things for long enough is going to get a chance eventually.
Having said that, it was pretty strange how they named the Chinese Taipei squad three weeks early. Taht squad didn’t include Mackenzie Barry or Grace Jale who were injured at the time of announcement yet both returned to play ninety minutes for the Wellington Phoenix before the squad was due to travel. Jale had been injured during the Costa Rica series so didn’t feature, while Barry was one of two other outfielders who didn’t get on the pitch during that tour. The other was Ruby Nathan who was selected again for CT. That was confusing as well.
None of this is meant to be a reflection upon the team, it’s performances, or the talent available. Nor is this article intending to declare an outright crisis. It’s more that there are a few too many puzzling things happening all at once to feel comfortable about where the Football Ferns are positioned. And especially how they’re being handled by New Zealand Football... and when it comes to NZF there’s usually fire that precedes the smoke. No need to panic here. We’re far from crisis territory. But we might need to nip a few things in the bud to make sure it stays that way. For example: hiring a coach, picking their best players, and actually playing some games of football.
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