‘I’m literally a hugger’: How interim CEO is tackling netball’s problem

Interim Netball Australia boss Stacey West still cannot find the words to describe the weeks in December last year when the sport reached a peak in the crisis that had extended for more than a year.

“The sport was under a significant period of – I don’t know what word we want to use – I’m not quite sure either,” West said this week. “I’ve never quite landed on a word.”

Interim CEO of Netball Australia, Stacey West.Credit: AAP

Netball Australia was in the midst of a vicious pay dispute with its players. It was facing heavy criticism for losing $17 million in government funding. Super Netball was bleeding millions of dollars. And broadcast partner Foxtel was seriously concerned about viewership numbers and a lack of strategic direction from the sport’s governing body. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

After chief executive Kelly Ryan resigned in December, West, a former netballer and long-time Netball Australia administrator, was offered the interim role.

There has been progress made in her short time in the top job: the damaged relationship between players and the governing body is repairing, and Netball Australia has taken steps to recoup some of the millions in lost funding.

But there are also several important questions that Netball Australia still cannot answer, and badly damaged relationships that are yet to be fully repaired – if they can be repaired at all.

‘It’s a great question, and I don’t know the answer’

Just days out from the start of a new Super Netball season, West said it was time to move forward and learn from the mistakes that were made. But she also confirmed that, at least for now, the competition was still on track to lose $7.5 million by 2026.

That figure, first revealed by this masthead in August, was outlined in a secret report authored by former NRL and Football Australia boss David Gallop. The report, handed down before the end of last season, found the league was losing millions of dollars and was under siege from other professional or semi-professional women’s sporting leagues.

Super Netball is days away from the start of a new season.Credit: Getty

It outlined several ways netball could turn the league back into a money-making entity. But when asked what was being done to pull the league out of its multimillion-dollar black hole, West could not point to one solution.

“Without question, more is the word. But what does that more look like? Is it more equity? Is it more investment? Is it more commercialisation of the teams? Is it more international athletes? Is it more clubs?”

Netball is the most popular team sport among girls and women in Australia. But that doesn’t translate into support for the elite competition – something West said Netball Australia still could not explain.

“It’s a great question, and I don’t know the answer – yet. Or still. But we’re working on it,” she said, referencing a taskforce that has been established to increase fan support for the domestic league.

The Diamonds won the World Cup for the 12th time last August.Credit: Getty Images

“We’ve got great data that says all of our numbers are up. So participation is returning post-COVID ... Our member organisations know what their members need. Our role is to support the learning of that and to … provide national frameworks of national products … that can really benefit the members in each state and territory.”

Pushed again to point to where netball had fallen down, West said: “I’m not sure. I’d be curious for your view. I think we say this most times, we’ve got potential, we just haven’t maximised that.”

‘I literally am a hugger’

Ryan resigned as Netball Australia CEO on December 13, effective immediately, after a tumultuous two-year tenure in the top role. West was appointed interim CEO the same day.

The first thing she had to address was the relationship with the players. Only hours into her new role, she rang players’ union boss Kathryn Harby-Williams – also a former teammate.

While the two parties had agreed to a deal in principle before Ryan resigned, within the day, Netball Australia agreed to the union’s requests and a historic pay deal was signed.

“I really feel like what I tried to do was pick up whatever was being presented to me and take initial care of it as my first approach,” West said.

She stretched out her arms, adding: “I actually show you my arms – I literally am a hugger. I think that really was required.”

The relationship with players was in a dire state. After a series of legal letters were sent demanding netballers attend an awards night, the vicious, year-long pay dispute was reaching the point of no return. After three months without pay, the union went public with claims that some players were being forced to sleep in their cars.

West (centre) with players from each of the Super Netball teams.Credit: Getty Images

The country’s most capped player, Liz Ellis, described the relationship as “poisoned” and said it was unlikely any sort of meaningful deal could be reached. Diamonds legend Joyce Brown released a petition calling for the immediate change of leadership. It received thousands of signatures.

By her own admission, and according to four senior netball sources who asked for anonymity to speak freely about the state of the sport, West’s warm demeanour was a key reason behind her appointment as interim CEO.

“I spent the last four months in a really committed position of deep listening,” West said.

“I genuinely battled initially when I was first offered the opportunity to be interim – am I capable? My fear of being good enough,” she said. “I had some really great people say, ‘You’re gonna go straight to what the sport needs right now,’ which is connect it, understand it, listen to it. And from all perspectives. I had to go everywhere.”

But there is still work to be done.

One of the sources said: “It’s been brutal, what [the players] had to go through – and not be paid for three months. And Netball Australia supported that. You can’t get over that overnight.

“It will take time, but what will win [the players over] is action, not words.”

There is still no timeline for appointing a permanent CEO, a position West has applied for.

“The board will be discussing the progress of the ongoing recruitment process at our next meeting,” said Wendy Archer, the Netball Australia chair.

In the months that followed Ryan’s resignation, several board members also left. Marina Go – who appointed Ryan and chaired the board during the Hancock Prospecting saga, when the company withdrew $15 million in sponsorship – secretly stood down days after Ryan’s resignation.

Archer and deputy chair John O’Sullivan also announced their resignations this year. Archer will remain on the board and see out the remainder of her tenure until 2025.

All four netball insiders spoken to by this masthead were concerned with the handling of the recruitment process and believed that a complete overhaul of the board was required.

‘Time to hit the throttle’

Late in 2023, it was announced that Netball Australia lost $17 million in funding because it had failed to convince the federal government that it would make good use of the money. The handling of the proposal was lambasted by one of the most powerful figures in sport, Australian Sports Commission boss Kieren Perkins.

Fixing the relationship with the government and regaining the funding, at least in part, was another of West’s priorities. In January, she brought together the state bodies and resubmitted a proposal to the Australian Sports Commission in a bid to recoup some of the $17 million.

“Part two was [going to the] government and saying, ‘What do we do? Tell me what I need to know.’ Then I really got the sport together, I got all of our member organisations into the room together here in Melbourne straight after the Christmas break and said, ‘Right, we’re going to resubmit a submission for funding federally, what does that funding look like?’”

West believed the key reason for the fractious relationship with the government, and the failures of the sport to conduct due diligence, was in large part caused by the turbulence in netball over the last two years.

“That’s not to say we didn’t want to prioritise government. That certainly wasn’t the case – there was still repeated attempts, at submissions, at funding.”

The submission is now being assessed and will be decided as part of the May budget. A commission spokesperson confirmed the relationship with netball was in a good place.

All of the league’s commercial partners have re-signed for the 2024 season. At grassroots level, membership numbers are rising. And, in a promising sign that Netball Australia will turn a profit at its May AGM, Netball Victoria reported a $500,000 profit for the 2023 financial year as well as a 30 per cent increase in commercial revenue growth.

But netball, already set back by years of turbulence, needs to move quickly to keep up in a competitive landscape.

“Now it’s time. You can’t sit in that space [of deep listening] for too long. We’re four months in, it’s time to hit the throttle,” West said.

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