By David
In my opinion, the current management and Board of Swimming New Zealand are made up of the most disgusting bunch of low life creeps I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. If the great hand of God was to go down as far as he could and lift them up as high as he could, none of them would reach the bottom. But this week even they found new a depth of depravity, a new level of greed, a new way to disgust.
Here is what the “guardians” of the sport of swimming in New Zealand have just ordered.
A few months ago Swimming New Zealand published a new schedule of membership fees. The fees all increased, of course, and way more than the rate of inflation. Those Mazdas have to be paid for somehow. The arrogance of the manner in which 17 Antares Place spends money and charges the membership is stunning. Their behaviour reminds me of the phrase attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette upon learning that the peasants had no bread, “Let them eat cake.”
That impression was reinforced when I noticed Swimming New Zealand had added a new fee to their payment schedule. Volunteer officials were going to be charged a $15 per annum membership fee. Providing their time and knowledge for free was no longer sufficient for the gang of imports running the new Swimming New Zealand. From now on officials were going to have to pay for the honour of standing at a swimming competition.
The pages of Swimwatch advocated a policy of civil disobedience. Get qualified, work at the swim meets but don’t register with Swimming New Zealand. Don’t pay the $15 fee. The swim meet would be managed by qualified officials; the rules would be properly enforced but Swimming New Zealand would miss out on their usurious fee.
It is important to understand that no one is suggesting officials should not be well trained and properly qualified. In fact the opposite is true. In my experience the better qualified, the more knowledgeable an official becomes the better it is for everyone. I have often mentioned my admiration for an official in Florida who was also an American Airline’s pilot. In things swimming he was well trained, experienced, decisive and caring. Even though he often disagreed with me he was, and I am sure still is, all that any swimmer or coach could want in an official.
What I disagreed with was Swimming New Zealand’s decision to charge these officials for their service. And, as I have said, my recommended solution was to work as normal but decline Swimming New Zealand’s demand for money.
The $15 amount is also irrelevant. There is not a soul in New Zealand who does not believe that the fee has been set at a low $15 as a means of getting the charge introduced. It would be outrageously naïve to believe the amount of $15 was going to last for long. Not when you are dealing with these guys. In five years that will double. The life style of a Swimming New Zealand executive demands no less.
I think the policy of civil disobedience must have been working. I suspect 17 Antares Place was getting very few $15 cheques. So what did they do? They reverted to type. They decided to use force. They decided to exercise cold blooded power. On the 12 November Swimming New Zealand distributed an email titled “Event Approval Process”.
The document was ruthless. It said that if the results of an event were going to be approved by Swimming New Zealand the officials at the meet had to be properly qualified “and are financial.” I repeat, no one here is objecting to the call for proper qualifications. But the demand for money is disgusting.
It is repulsive because it holds the efforts of young swimmers to ransom. It says, “pay us $15 or we will not approve your child’s swim times.” Remember that caste-iron rule, “Never take it out on the swimmers.” Try telling that to the management or Board of Swimming New Zealand. I doubt that they care. They appear to have no problem rejecting swimmer’s times that have been swum in a proper meet, run by properly qualified officials, just because one or more of the officials have not paid Swimming New Zealand a registration fee. I’m not saying this is blackmail but, you have to admit, threatening to punish swimmers by not approving their times unless their “parent officials” pay $15 is bloody close to the Webster definition of a “payment that is extorted”.
I imagine many “parent officials” will pay the $15 rather than run the risk of having Swimming New Zealand discard the efforts of their children. And of course that is what Swimming New Zealand is banking on. Good people will do what good people do. And bad buggers will get away with behaviour that, in my view, has no principle.
And the argument that has been made to me, that officials used to pay a registration fee in the old days, so why not pay a similar fee today, has no merit. In 1840 the Victorians saw children as young as five working in coal mines as a normal part of life. But we’ve moved on. We know better now. Except, it seems, if you work for Swimming New Zealand. In that case, reverting back to the ancient custom of charging officials is just fine.
I would still advocate the principle of civil disobedience. Just refuse to pay the fee. I don’t believe the guys who run Swimming New Zealand these days have the courage to follow through on their threat. Remember this is the same crew that signed a FINA form that said the Wellington Pool met all FINA rules when it clearly did not. Just imagine if this $15 fee rule had been in place when Boyle swam her 1500 metre time and Swimming New Zealand discovered one of the IOTs had not paid the $15 fee, do you think for a second Layton or Renford would have let that get in the way of having the time approved. Of course not.
The behaviour of Swimming New Zealand is pretty typical of bullies the world over. Their emails will threaten and coerce the parents of swimmers competing in Auckland Level Two meets or in the Hawkes Bay Waipukurau Meet but threaten the performance of one of the chosen Millennium few and watch their principles crumble.
“Follow the money”. This is simply about paying for the Mazdas. Just read their accounts. It’s all about paying for the Mazdas.
