The new franchises for next year's transtasman league look set for a mad scramble to sign players before the holidays once delays in establishing a new players' association are resolved.
The hold-up in setting up the New Zealand netball players' association has left the franchises in a holdingpattern until the collective contracts are sorted out.
But after months of discussions, ANZ Championship general manager Tony Holding is confident of having the issues resolved before Christmas.
"We're still working very diligently with the players' association. We hope that we are very close to having final resolution," he said.
While some franchises have had players sign letters of intent for next season, uncertainty still surrounds the make-up of each of the teams, particularly the Kiwi sides, until players can officially put pen to paper.
Ideally at this time of year the teams would be well into their pre-season training, so there is a strong sense of urgency to finalise the line-ups as soon as the contract issues are sorted.
This could result in a flurry of player movement just before Christmas.
Holding said he recognised this was frustrating for the franchises, but the process of setting up a players' association was hugely complex.
"It's not just as simple as how much you get paid to play, but player welfare issues, property rights and all of those sorts of things."
Netball Australia took six to eight months to negotiate their agreement with the players when they introduced a new players' association before last year's Commonwealth Bank Trophy.
However he admitted that when he took over the role, he never envisaged they would experience such delays.
"I'll be honest, no. And that's not because we didn't see it coming. There had always been talk of a players' association, but like everything we think 'yeah that'll take a couple of weeks', and they don't.
"We should have been a little bit more aware of how long it could have taken."
A great deal of progress had been made in other areas with the finalised draw set to be released today.
The 17-week competition starts on April 6 next year, with games to be played on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
