The weekend’s Super Netball fixtures are under a cloud as players contemplate strike action over a feud with Netball Australia.
The Australian Netball Players’ Association has called for experienced administrator Kathryn Harby-Williams’ re-election to the governing body’s board, with her position to be decided at Friday’s annual general meeting.
The association is also threatening to boycott Australian Diamonds matches and form a breakaway domestic competition.
It’s reported Harby-Williams’ position is under threat as two state associations, Queensland and NSW, seek to oust her to install their own candidates in response to a slipping grasp on power.
It’s understood member organisations are reluctant to embrace new Super Netball teams not aligned to state associations, rather football clubs, particularly due to player recruitment issues.
“There just seems to be this real bitterness around the member organisations not having a say on the teams coming into their homeland, now that they have to share sponsorship and they have to fight for members, fight for players,” the ANPA’s Bianca Chatfield told Fairfax Media.
A letter by the association sent to Netball Australia chair Paolina Hunt, said the non-election of Harby-Williams for “well-meaning individuals who contribute little” would demonstrate a failure to be willing to take the game forward.
“No player will be available to represent the Australian Diamonds for the remainder of the year, until the Australian Sports Commission expresses their confidence and satisfaction that the board is truly independent and capable of acting in the best interests of the sport and not representative groups that have both a real and perceived conflict of interest,” the letter, published by Fairfax, reads.
Netball Australia said in a statement the threat of industrial action was “unfortunate”.
“The sport is in total agreement around the need to move forward collectively, with a focus on the most critical issues impacting netball, including fully leveraging the recent commercial and broadcast inroads that have been made with the inception of Suncorp Super Netball,” the statement said.
Ken Spacey
Guest
The exact relationship between Netball or certain elements of it and the AFL bears closer examination. This is not a new relationship and in some ways Netball has acted as the de facto AFL related option for women in areas where AFL and to a lesser extent other football codes were dominant. That worked in a way when they were complimentary rather than competitive in the same market. Once more the reach of the GWS into other centres and activities is strange for a club that can barely excite its nominal heartland despite its strong peformance forecaste. Maybe the old schoolnetball folks might query why the new netball franchises seem more about the AFL angle.to cover centres where there is no AFLW franchise. If netball admin was a public company the directors would be getting a lot of heat.One would also ask the wisdom of burning off NZ, the only other netball power that happens to be in your backyard. Super rugby is changing the quotas but not burning Sth Africa and Australia.