New Zealand Football High Performance Director resigns over Olympic qualification error

Two months after overseeing one of the most costly administrative errors in New Zealand sport, New Zealand Football High Performance Director (HPD) Fred de Jong has accepted accountability and resigned.

The New Zealand men's Under 23 team were disqualified from the 2016 Olympics football qualifying tournament for fielding an ineligible player during the Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea in July after they fielded Deklan Wynne, a South African-born player who didn't meet international eligibility criteria set out by world football governing body FIFA.

de Jong, who has held the role since 2012, handed in his resignation last week but said it had been on his mind since returning from Papua New Guinea.

de Jong told the New Zealand Herald “the issues of eligibility have arisen within the high-performance department and as leader of that department I must accept a level of accountability for what's happened and I have decided to resign.

"There's a level of accountability that I accept.

“(The error) is out of my department and that's how accountability is, that's the responsibility of the leader. Within that framework, it's the right time to step aside and let someone else lead the program."

de Jong's role was to manage the programmes of the international teams. He employed the staff for each team and would then manage the campaigns and oversee the administration.

New Zealand Football is still hoping to overturn their disqualification in an ongoing legal battle with Oceania Football Confederation, but de Jong said that regardless of the outcome it was time to step down.

He added “with my time in the role there are things I look back on with a great deal of satisfaction and there are some things I look back and go, 'could I have done better', or, 'Should I have made a different decision?' But at the time you make a call based on what you think is in the best interests of New Zealand Football.

"Because we are in the middle of a legal process, I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of the eligibility side of things, but I will say I accept a level of responsibility for what has happened."

The cost of the administrative error is likely to cost New Zealand Football millions of dollars. If they had won their final, the Oly Whites were guaranteed five top-class matches, with at least three at the Olympics as well as warm-up games. Under that scenario, almost all costs were covered. An equivalent series of matches would cost up to $1.5 million to arrange.

New Zealand Football have already paid out thousands of dollars on legal expenses along with qualification camp costs estimated at $100,000.

Asked if he feels he has left New Zealand Football in a better position than when he took over, de Jong concluded "I'd like to think so. We didn't have a high-performance director when I walked in the door and some of the structures we have put in place are an improvement on when I arrived."

de Jong highlighted his role in the planning and early delivery of NZF's elite game blueprint, the Beyond Football plan, and the activity he helped give to New Zealand's age-group and senior teams with limited resources.

FIFA statutes require a player who has changed nationality to either be born in the association's territory, have a biological father, mother or grandparents born in the territory, or to have lived in the new country for five years after the age of 18.

Wynne, aged 20, doesn't have a New Zealand parent or grandparent and will not be eligible to play for New Zealand at any level until the age of 23, despite being a New Zealand citizen and having lived in the country since childhood.

Images: Fred de Jong (top) and Deklan Wynne (below).

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