New Zealand Football and the six member federations (Northern Region Football, WaiBop, Central Football, Capital Football, Mainland Football and Southern Football [formerly Football South]) have confirmed they will be joining together under one unified brand identity as part of a wider programme of work to collaborate and share services to generate more efficiency and effectiveness for members.

Going forward, all seven organisations will operate under one logo with regional variations for each federation. 

The new brand will be used across New Zealand Football except for national teams, who will continue to wear the existing single fern, continuing the long history of the motif and differentiating international activity from the domestic game. 

The new logo features two ferns in a circular shape symbolising both a football and the infinite connection created by all those that are involved in the game. 

The stalk represents the grassroots communities, the clubs, volunteers and fans. They form the foundation of football in Aotearoa and are at the centre of everything that happens in the game. 

The pinna represents our federations who guide and protect our clubs and communities, allowing everyone to be heard and represented. 
 

All seven organisations will immediately move to use the new brand digitally. 

Physical materials like apparel, signage and literature will transition to the new identity over the next two years once existing assets are due for replacement to ensure there is no additional cost created through the process. 

Andrew Pragnell, CEO of New Zealand Football, believes that greater alignment between New Zealand Football and the federations can only benefit the game:

“The brand alignment is the aesthetic representation of a much bigger programme of work which is about reducing administrative duplication and cost across the football delivery system to bring more value to members.

“This project has been very positive from the start with both NZF and the federations recognising the value working closer together particularly with shared service costs, alignment across fleet, human resources, shared policies and procedures, administrative costs and professional development to name a few areas that we now work on collectively. 

“It is incumbent on all of us to be service-orientated, deliver high quality services to our members and ensure that we reduce duplication and all back office administrative costs where possible. In line with this, the brand transition itself is being managed so there is no additional cost to the system.

“I don’t think historically that NZF and member federations have always worked in an aligned fashion. That has changed and this brand alignment is the visual representation of that. Members should take heart from this, it is more significant than it may seem at first, and a part of the growing maturity of football in New Zealand”

Aligning New Zealand Football and the federations under one unified brand identity was one of the objectives outlined in the ‘Think National, Act Local’ strand of the Delivery and Sustainability Project, launched in 2020 by New Zealand Football to examine some of the challenges faced by football in Aotearoa. Along with the unified brand, a shared services model between all seven organisations has also been established allowing for significant cost savings from combined buying power. 


Article added: Thursday 01 December 2022