Raelene Castle to be named new CEO of Sport New Zealand

Controversial former Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle will be appointed to the country’s top sports administration position.

Castle, 49, will replace Sport New Zealand CEO Peter Miskimmin, who announced in August that he would be leaving the organization he has run since 2008.

A source said Katie Sadleir, a sports administration expert and former Olympian, has told at least one national sports organization that she missed the role. Sadleir and Castle were understood to be the only candidates who were granted a final interview.

In these craziest years, it would seem foolhardy to dismiss last-minute shocks, but if Castle missed his job, it would represent a clever play of distraction by Grant Robertson, who was named deputy prime minister this week, holding on to the sports portfolio.

He made it clear to insiders that Miskimmin’s replacement would be a woman and recently appeared with Castle, who spoke via digital connection due to Covid-19 restrictions, at Captain’s Lunch, which celebrates female leadership in sports. and business.

Castle will become the third CEO of Sport NZ after Miskimmin and Nick Hill, and the first woman to lead the crown agency.

The move to replace him with Castle has been well signaled in the Herald, but it will nonetheless surprise many in the sporting community who believe that Castle’s tense tenure in RA and the NRL’s Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs disqualified her from such a role. featured so soon.

Her legacy as CEO of Netball New Zealand is less complicated, although the zonal system she introduced has not been an immaculate success, with Netball Mainland going into voluntary liquidation this year. The Silver Ferns were successful under his reign, which always reflects leadership well.

However, it is at Rugby Australia that Castle faced, and some would say failed, his greatest challenge.

Although it could be argued that previous administrations set her up to fail, Israel Folau’s handling of the homophobia saga, coupled with the failure to secure a broadcast deal before the Covid-19 hit, left the union in financial jeopardy when Castle resigned. in April.

Hamish McLennan, RA chairman, said the organization was in crisis when he took office in June.

“The whole organization was a war zone,” he told Australian media. “I was deeply concerned about the long-term viability of the game because everyone was fighting and there was no focus on the right results and how we were going to win.”

The new executive director of Sport NZ will intervene at a time of extraordinary upheaval, some caused by the financial implications of the pandemic, some by societal changes away from traditional sports, and others by athletes’ resentment over the delivery of programs and high yield funds. .

“I am extremely proud of what this organization has accomplished in the last 12 years and how well equipped it is to serve our industry in the future,” Miskimmin said when announcing his departure.

“This has been a period of unprecedented sporting success for New Zealand on the world stage. It has also been one in which Sport NZ has taken a big step in addressing the decline in participation of our young people and the impact this is having. in your well-being. “

Despite the many high-performance successes of New Zealand teams and athletes, Miskimmin leaves with the ever-changing sector.

Participation has plummeted in many of the country’s traditional team sports, particularly during adolescence. The overheated and increasingly commercialized secondary sports sector is a nettle that your organization has failed to capture.

A well-placed source said that restoring “sanity” and balance in the school sports space would be a top priority for Sport NZ, as would controlling costs at High-Performance Sport New Zealand, a subsidiary of Sport NZ.