Netball: Battle for Latu goes to sport's top court

Catherine Latu. Photo / Getty Images

Netball New Zealand is going to the world's highest sporting judicial body to get Mystics shooter Catherine Latu into the Silver Ferns.

After a long-running battle with the International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA) over Latu's eligibility, Netball NZ has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Up until this point, Netball NZ has kept quiet about its bid to have Latu, who played 30 tests for Samoa, declared eligible to represent the Silver Ferns.

But given they have taken the remarkable and extremely rare step of taking their case to the world court - something that can only be done when all other options have been exhausted - they have clearly been petitioning IFNA behind the scenes for a long time with no success.

A hearing date has not been set, but with the national selectors due to name their squad for the world championships at the end of the month, Netball NZ is hopeful of having the case heard in the next couple of weeks.

Netball NZ chief executive Raelene Castle said she had requested a hearing in the court's satellite office in Sydney.

Latu has been one of the standout shooters in the transtasman league over the past couple of seasons, but has been unable to don the black dress as she is serving a four-year international stand-down period as she represented Samoa at the last world championships in Auckland in 2007.

IFNA rules state a player cannot represent two different countries at successive world tournaments.

However there is a clause that allows players to switch if they are returning to their country of birth, as former Silver Fern defender Vilimaina Davu did when she returned to play for Fiji in 2007.

Castle said this precedent gave her organisation strong legal grounds to argue Auckland-born Latu should be allowed to play for the Ferns.

"We believe that the athlete has been wronged in her desire to represent her country of birth and that is what the IFNA rules state so we believe there has been incorrect application of the rules," she said.

"We have been in dialogue with IFNA about this for the past 18 months and they don't see it that way, so we've been left with no choice but to get an independent view of it."

The bid to have Latu included in the Silver Ferns for the world championships is proving unpopular among the international netball community.

IFNA, an organisation with limited financial resources, is said to be furious with Netball NZ for undertaking such expensive legal proceedings.

Other national netball associations are likely to see it as a case of Netball NZ trying to bend the rules to suit themselves.

It was the defection of Davu and South African stars Irene van Dyk and Leana de Bruin to New Zealand that prompted IFNA to rethink its flimsy eligibility rules in the first place.

But these emotional arguments will be taken out of the final decision-making as the court of arbitration is a completely independent sporting judicial authority.

The procedures are extremely formal and the court will only consider legal arguments.

Given Netball NZ is taking such drastic steps to fight for Latu's eligibility, it is clear the organisation is desperate to have the 24-year-old shooter involved in the Ferns' world championship campaign.

Van Dyk undoubtedly still reigns supreme in the Ferns' shooting ranks, but there has been concern over the past few years about who would replace the star sharpshooter if she should be injured.

Latu has emerged as one of the star shooters in the transtasman league over the past couple of seasons and is now the most accurate shooter of the competition with a 91.4 per cent strike rate.

She will be seen as an ideal back-up to van Dyk.

But Castle said Netball NZ's efforts to have Latu declared eligible for New Zealand was not a reflection on the depth of the current crop of shooters.

"It's about making sure the high-performance team have the best players available to select from."