New Zealand Football President Johanna Wood was presented with the Sport New Zealand Leadership Award last night at the ISPS Handa Halberg Awards Decade Champion ceremony – which came as a little bit of a surprise to her.

“I did get a bit of a heads up, but I only found out last night – I hadn’t told anyone except my husband. Even my kids didn’t know.”

A dairy farmer and former head teacher and chair of Central Football Federation, Wood joined ExCo in 2018 and was elected president of New Zealand Football in 2019 – our first female president. She was then elected to FIFA Council as an Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) representative, and as NZF President became OFC’s first female representative with voting rights on the FIFA Council.

After her first year as president of New Zealand Football, Exco reached 40% female representation, ahead of the New Zealand Government’s target of all sports governing bodies having at least 40% female representation by 2021. During the bidding process for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the joint Australia/New Zealand bid was the only one led by a woman.

"There were a lot of comments last night that FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 is going to be the biggest, most amazing event for women, not just in the world but here in New Zealand and Australia,” Wood notes.

“And it’s about having women visible both on and off the pitch.”

The Sport New Zealand Leadership Award is presented annually at the ISPS Handa Halberg Awards, with recipients selected by Sport New Zealand.

Wood is just the third woman to win the award, and the first representative from football. Previous award winners include rugby’s Steve Hanson, Richie McCaw, Sir John Wells, Jock Hobbs, Sir John Graham and Graham Henry, Halberg Foundation founder Sir Murray Halberg, Sir John Anderson and Susie Simcock from squash and golf, and the most recent previous recipient being Silver Ferns coach Dame Noeline Taurua.

“There’s quite a few sirs and dames in there, that puts a bit of pressure on,” Wood laughs.

“I’m humbled and I’m really honoured about the award. But I also think it really puts football on the map. Football had a number of nominations in the decade awards last night, and that’s an achievement in itself.”

Based on achievements over the past decade, there were a number of football nominations for last night’s decade champions. Anna Leat’s penalty shootout heroics at the U-17 FIFA Women’s World Cup 2018 and Winston Reid’s FIFA World Cup 2010 goal against Slovakia were both nominated for Favourite Sporting Moment of the Decade. The 2010 All Whites were nominated for the Supreme Halberg Award Decade Champion thanks to their unbeaten run at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. They were also nominated for the ISPS Handa Team of the Decade, while 2010 All Whites coach Ricki Herbert was nominated for Buddle Findlay Coach of the Decade.

“For me, I’ll take this award, but I’ll take it on behalf of the whole of football and my family,” says Wood.

“As I said last night, I couldn’t do what I do without the support of the team behind me – and that’s the NZF staff, the board, the players, the referees, the coaches, the volunteers, and certainly with the World Cup bid we’ve had big support from the government, from MBIE, from our federations.”

Article added: Thursday 25 March 2021