Ryan Nelsen slams NZ football

Phoenix also cop blast

All Whites captain Ryan Nelsen has launched a stinging attack on New Zealand football and the Wellington Phoenix for failing to develop local football talent.

Nelsen, who led New Zealand to a 1-1 draw with China yesterday, was staggered that hardly any of his Oly-Whites teammates have Wellington Phoenix contracts.

He felt the A-League club was stifling New Zealand football's development and had reservations about conflicts of interest between the Phoenix and New Zealand Football.

Nelsen said both organisations needed to pick up their game as Ricki Herbert's dual role as Phoenix and All Whites coaches should benefit, not harm, the national team.

The English premiership star, who was playing for New Zealand again after four years' international absence, insisted the Phoenix had to play their part in developing the New Zealand game.

He had been stunned to hear that the club, coached by the national coach, would not allow two players - Tony Lochhead and Shane Smeltz - to be considered as over-age players at the Olympics.

"In the end, they weren't needed, but there's a principle here. We have the Phoenix, coached by the national coach, not prepared to release players for the Olympic Games, yet Tony Lochhead has gone off for a trial at Middlesbrough.

"There would have been a huge furore if that had happened overseas. If I was head of New Zealand Soccer, I would have had massive reservations about my head coach of the national team not releasing [his club] players to go play at a tournament like the Olympics."

Nelsen said the draw with China proved there was tremendous talent in the Oly-Whites' ranks and he failed to see why midfielder Cole Peverley and goalscorer Jeremy Brockie could not get Phoenix contracts. Only late draftee Greg Draper is on the club's books.

The Blackburn Rovers skipper said he was speaking out because he had been appalled to hear how some young Oly-Whites players had been told that the professional club was "not responsible for New Zealand football's development".

"That just staggers me. Some of the things I've been hearing have been horrendous. I think deep down, 99 per cent of people involved in New Zealand soccer think the same thing, but people are a bit too politically correct to say so.

"The talent's there; that was obvious last night [against China]. But all these guys are complete amateurs, who do their jobs and go to university, and they're playing against Ronaldinho and Brazil on Sunday."

Nelsen said he refused to sit back and see another lost generation of football talent fall by the wayside and fail to get the chance to advance their careers.

He said he had seen it happen to All Whites and Phoenix defender Ben Sigmund.

"He should have had seven years of professional football under his belt, but he didn't want to wear a heartrate monitor for one day because it was uncomfortable and [former New Zealand coaching director] Paul Smalley said, `Ben, you're done'."

Nelsen accepted New Zealand Football was financially strapped but said lack of money was a cop-out. A strategy was needed with everyone working to the same goal.

If Nelsen was in charge of the Phoenix he would have four or five players from the national under-20s and the same number from the under-23s in his squad.

Nelsen believed too much power in New Zealand Football in the past couple of years had been vested "in a couple of people who have made decisions that are just not right".

He said former chief executive Graham Seatter was wrong to commit so much money to getting more games for the All Whites. "I would spend more on the under-17s, 20s and the 23s to develop players."

The role of the Australian league was to develop players for professional careers and to benefit Australian national teams, Nelsen said. "Can we say that about what the Phoenix does for New Zealand football?"

- © Fairfax NZ News