Dear Football Community,

I hope you are all well, and enjoying a safe time at home with your families.

I wanted to provide you with an update from Football South, just to let you know where things are at.

The events of the past two weeks have been tough for many of you. It’s sad to learn that New Zealand has experienced it’s first fatality from COVID-19 and our thoughts go out to the victim’s family in what is an extremely tough and unprecedented time. We believe in what New Zealand are doing to respond to the challenge, and will continue to support these efforts on an individual and organisational level.

During this time, Football South’s strategic priorities are to:

1. Ensure that our members and staff are healthy and safe
2. Support our clubs and football system to come through this challenge successfully
3. Ensure Football South can continue to operate and be productive
4.  

Here is an update of the Football & Futsal situation in our Federation:

• Football and Futsal competitions and events have been suspended until May 2nd, with no team trainings allowed throughout the lock down period.
• The ISPS Handa Premiership was completed early (with two games to go), with Southern United finishing 7th.
• Our staff are now working remotely, and still available to contact should you need anything.
• A further update regarding competitions will be provided later next week, following the expected update from Government regarding isolation longevity on April 6th

Before I go further, I’d like to congratulate the Southern United lads for their 7th place finish, and Auckland City FC on their title. It’s not the way we wanted the season to end, but looking after our players and staff is much more important. I’d like to again thank all our players, staff, sponsors, funders and fans across all four Southern United teams for their efforts and support this season. While we can’t conduct a physical season prize giving, watch out for this over social media where we celebrate all those involved in Southern United this past season.

Like you all, we are hoping that the efforts to contain the virus are successful, and we can get back to our beautiful game soon. At the moment it’s too early to tell when that will be exactly, so the approach we’ve taken is to plan for several scenarios. We’ll be ready to support our club, community and school competitions to take place whether that’s as hoped in May, or later. We’re working with councils and other sports on this, and if needed we can be creative to overcome any issues around the timings, facilities and formats to ensure we can deliver a great experience.

Over the next few weeks the picture will start to become clearer on other programmes in the calendar, but until then our staff have been busy with planning, some wish-list items, contacting and support all our clubs, and some creative thinking.

Whilst our AGM was planned for May, we’ll likely still go ahead but through an online meeting rather than face-to-face. Like many other businesses this is a concerning time for us and our staff, and we know that New Zealand and it’s sporting scene will likely look very different in 6-12 months’ time as a result. We’re not burying our heads in the sand and it’s been exciting to see how we and our clubs and other sports are coming together to collectively solve the problems.

Our thoughts go out to our funders, sponsors and partners – many of whom are going through difficult times themselves as a result of businesses disruption around COVID-19. We encourage you to support our local businesses as much as you are able. For the time being, we are thankful for the governments support and will continue to work in the best interests of the game.

We’re all missing our football and/or futsal fix, and while there are many unknowns I encourage you all to practice at home, continue to be kind to each other, and stay safe and well. 

As the situation progresses over the coming weeks Football South will continue to update you, so please keep an eye on our website and social media.

Kind Regards

Chris Wright | Football South CEO