A change in leadership at Sport New Zealand is an opportunity for better investment in sport across the country, according to Harbour Sport chief executive Mike Bishop.
Outgoing Sport New Zealand chief executive officer Peter Miskimmin. Photo: Photosport
Bishop wants a "significant review" into how sport is funded and he said the imminent departure of Peter Miskimmin as chief executive of Sport New Zealand is a good time to do it.
Speaking on a United Via Sport webcast Bishop said more could be done to make sure sports funding in New Zealand ends up in the places it is needed most.
"We've had a traditional model for delivering and participating in sport in this country for a long, long time and it has worked pretty well but it needs to change, we need to be more inclusive around how we deliver sport and how it is digested by those that show an interest in it," Bishop said.
Miskimmin's resignation was "a really good opportunity for sport to sit down and really review closely how it is delivering what it does and the bang it is getting for the buck that it has," Bishop said.
"There are a lot of organisations that have been set-up, some for more than 100 years, and are they still fit for purpose?
"Maybe it is time to sit down as a sporting environment and work out how we do this best and how we do it better for those that are coming after us... and ensure we set up systems that are better than they are now and make sure that they are able to be ultilised by particularly our youth coming through."
Funding for community and high performance sport had been had to come by "for many years", Bishop said, and New Zealand's elite athletes often competed on the world stage "on the smell of an oil rag".
"[High performance sport] could be funded better I believe and what goes alongside that is better funding into the community side of sport because at the end of the day you don't have elite sport if you don't have the community first.
"Every elite athlete started out in community sport, so we need to prioritise how we do that as communities."
Bishop said a collaborative approach was needed across sector if change was to be implemented successfully.
Community sport needs to be more inclusive. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
In the webcast that focused on the future of community sport in Auckland, both Bishop and the director of the AUT Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand, Professor Lesley Ferkin, said another issue facing the region was inclusivity at the grassroots level.
"We need to be better at being welcoming and inclusive. It is a funny thing sport we create these little exclusive membership type scenarios, which is great they create the tribes of sport but it also creates exclusion and we really need to look at that in the community sport context," Ferkin said.
"We really need to work on being far more welcoming in our club environment and far more inclusive in the way that we invite those who may be less able, who look different, who have had different experiences to us."
Bishop said on Auckland's North Shore 33 percent of the population was Asian and sporting opportunities needed to be created with that growing population in mind.
"We need to be delivering sporting opportunities for those people, firstly so that they can assimilate into New Zealand society but secondly then share their experiences of sports from their own countries and own backgrounds so that we all get an experience of very different types of sport how it's delivered and how it's played."
