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It’s been an exciting year for New Zealand Football, culminating in the gripping All Whites win against Bahrain last month, which saw them qualify for the Football World Cup Finals in South Africa next year. You’d have to have been living under a rock for the past couple of months to not know that this is a very big deal indeed.

The new National Plan aims to make sure that the game in New Zealand is structured correctly to make the most of the momentum that achievements like this will generate throughout the country.
 
John Herdman is Director of Football Development at New Zealand Football and it’s been his job to pull the new National Plan together and see it implemented across all forms of the game.

“We are aiming to realign the game, not just at a national level, but at a regional level as well. We want one plan for football in New Zealand, with one vision to drive the game forward,” explains John.

“We need to see some longevity in the decisions we are making, so that we can recruit and retain players in all regions – so our aim is to create high quality football experiences that are consistent across the country; experiences that are the same for someone in Invercargill as it is for someone in Whangarei. The National Plan plays an important part in ensuring that longevity.”

John tells us that whilst there have been some impressive programmes run throughout the country over the years, it’s been very much hit-and-miss, and those successes have been regionally-focused, which means it’s been hard to gain momentum for the sport at a national level.

“We are building a ‘Whole of Football’ approach where we will focus specifically on four key development areas, namely: game development; coach development; player/talent development; and referee/officials development. 
 
“Traditionally, the major focus of the national office and its regional bodies has been on talent and player development, however, with this new approach we will ensure the grassroots are supported and developed at the same rate as our talent programmes. Alongside these core areas is a specific emphasis on the development of girl’s and women’s football and the exciting sport of Futsal, a small-sided indoor version of football that is gaining in popularity worldwide.”