Canoeing: Showdown looms in split

Ian Ferguson. Photo / NZ Herald

Six people involved in the ugly split rending New Zealand canoeing have now departed, the latest being high performance director Wayne Maher.

Maher resigned this week and is the sixth to have moved on since revelations in October from former Olympic icons Paul MacDonald and Ian Ferguson, claiming they were the victims of a campaign to oust them.

Fellow former Olympic gold medallist and Canoe Racing New Zealand board member Alan Thompson resigned from the board in support of Ferguson and MacDonald, whose contracts were not renewed.

Mark Sutherland, a former national coach who coached MacDonald and Ferguson, resigned from CRNZ's sprint advisory committee over the Ben Fouhy selection issue.

Fouhy retired from the sport when Sparc withdrew his individual funding - a side issue in a bitter dispute tied up with the two coaches and their custodianship of the national team. Now Maher - described by the two Olympians as being one of those wanting to get rid of them - has himself resigned.

Maher petitioned canoeing athletes to come up with reasons why they did not want to be coached by Ferguson and MacDonald.

In an email to kayaker Troy Burbidge, published by the Herald on Sunday last year, Maher said: "Can you please write something to the effect of: Why you no longer want to be coached by Ian and/or Paul and/or Andras [Szabo, another coach] - reasons etc. What you are prepared to work with in the short-term - e.g. We are in behind the HP [high performance programme] and all we need is a programme and IPPs [individual performance programmes] etc while international coaches are recruited. In the long-term, international coaches will give us ... [a blank space left for the athletes to fill in] Plus anything else you think - maybe send it around as a chain letter and get everyone to contribute their bit? Please give me a call if you need to discuss it further - it needs to be in Paula's email [CRNZ CEO Paula Kearns] no later than 5pm today."

The coaches said Maher's email was soliciting support against them and, at the time, Thompson said: "... CRNZ is trying to put words into their mouths and therefore everything that is said is irrelevant, this is how fascism and communism operated."

Maher did not return calls yesterday.

However, even as Maher's resignation was received, the CRNZ board was under attack from a move by Thompson, MacDonald and Ferguson to oust the board at last night's annual general meeting. The move, flagged late last year, was seeking to gain the support of a majority of the 11 canoeing clubs to change the structure of the board - putting Thompson and the coaches back in charge.

Word was still being awaited late last night in what was expected to be a close vote with related issues affecting the board.

In a memo to clubs on the CRNZ financial status, John Trotter, chairman of the audit and risk committee, advised that CRNZ was in deficit by $33,000 for 2010, mostly because of rises in 'governance' ($36,000) and legal expenses ($43,000).

"These expenses ... are higher than budgeted due to the challenges that have arisen during 2010 requiring the board to have face-to-face meetings and to obtain legal advice on many issues."

Legal expenses were nearly four times higher than budget. He also noted CRNZ were defending a personal grievance case for $30,000 being brought by "a former coach" [MacDonald].

CRNZ chairman Peter Fitzsimmons in a document published before the AGM, warned clubs CRNZ was required to demonstrate a high level of governance effectiveness as a condition of its Sparc agreements.

"Sparc expressly detailed its expectations around good governance when committing further funding," he said. "Clubs need to understand that the kind of 'governance remodelling' proposed in the notice is in total contradiction to Sparc's long-term approach to investment and governance thinking."

Fitzsimmons said: "The proposed election process is not just contrary to the Sparc's thinking, it is also contrary to the growing trend both in the non-for-profit sector and globally, regarding good governance practise [sic]".

Sparc said, when announcing its $900,000 investment in CRNZ for 2011 that it was "subject to confirmation of its coaching structure and ensuring the right environment is created for all of the athletes within the national training squad."

Thompson criticised Fitzsimmons for trying to influence matters and said the chairman's job, ethically and historically, was to chair the meeting impartially and to follow its wishes.