Super Netball 2022: Powerbrokers concede players hurt in netball’s civil war following GF decision

Netball’s civil war has erupted this week - and we can take you inside the meeting between the game’s stars and its governing body which threatened to reach boiling point.

Netball Australia chair Marina Go concedes the organisation will need to mend fences with its playing group after an 11th-hour grand final shift but said the commercially sensitive nature of discussions meant it was difficult to share information.

Super Netball players reacted with fury to the announcement this week that the grand final had been awarded to Perth after the West Australian government made a cash injection and in-kind assurances that would help bolster the sport’s perilous financial position.

Australian Netball Players Association (ANPA) chief executive Kathryn Harby-Williams said broken promises and misleading statements from the sport’s powerbrokers has left players more angry than after the quickfire introduction of the notorious super shot two years ago.

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Australian Netball Players Association boss Kathryn Harby-Williams says netballers are now more angry with a lack of consultation than after the introduction of the super shot.

It was not the decision itself that had most angered players, rather, the breaking of promises made after the introduction of the super shot that players would in future be consulted on any major decision in the game.

“We were promised that that process was not the appropriate one and it will never happen again,” Harby-Williams said.

“And all this time later, nothing’s changed.”

Go, who was Super Netball Commission chair when the two-point shot was introduced without discussion with players or coaches, said on a similar matter, players “absolutely” would be consulted.

But she said not all decisions were equal.

“There are certain matters that you definitely need to consult the players about and then there will be other matters that are for the organisation to determine,” Go said.

“We’ve got a bit of a burning platform at the moment and you will have heard Kelly (Netball Australia chief executive Kelly Ryan) speaking about the challenge of the past two years and the financials, that the new board and our new CEO have, in fact, inherited.

“Our fiduciary duty is to ensure there is a financially stable organisation but also a sport that’s going to grow and that we can reinvest in.”

Marina Go says consultation cannot occur on all decisions. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

But Harby-Williams said in briefings given to players on Tuesday night, the financial position was not presented as direly, or as the main driver for the decision, while the “consultation” was being conducted after a deal had already been done.

“We go through an hour of being misled that this is consultation when after that meeting, (ANPA president) Joanna Weston confirmed the deal had been done,” Harby-Williams said.

“I’ve been in the sport a long time and I’ve never seen the playing group so disappointed, so enraged, and it was basically a train wreck.

“Worse than super shot.

“It’s misleading, it’s a lack of integrity and that doesn’t sit well with anybody. You know, the super shot, no consultation but we’d like to think we weren’t misled.

“How do we make Netball Australia understand that we can we can help the sport, we want to help the sport, but if our relationship is not strong, how do you do that?”

Melbourne Vixens won the 2020 Super Netball grand final at a neutral venue in the Covid-enforced Queensland hub. Picture: Michael Klein

Go said there was work for the governing body to do to fix its relationship with the players.

“Clearly there’s work to do within the sport to mend some of the hurt that the players are feeling and we completely understand that,” she said.

“We knew that it would be a risk, of course we did. And we care about the players, of course we do.

“But there are some things that we can’t share with them at the moment when they would like them to be shared and they are the commercial in confidence situations.

“It’s a difficult one because they will never be happy with that but at the same time, we can’t not honour an in-confidence situation.”

Originally published as Super Netball 2022: Powerbrokers concede players hurt in netball’s civil war following GF decision