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SPARC, For The Love Of God, Do Something

By David

The story I am about to relate is based on rumour and gossip. I could very well have facts that are wrong, details that are missed and information that is exaggerated. However even if the news out of Swimming New Zealand today is only half true, it is a colossal scandal.

The last time Cameron went to a major swim meet was the New Delhi Commonwealth Games. With Swimming New Zealand’s blessing she spent most of her time commentating for her husband’s television channel. Nepotism is a Cameron family tradition – husband, wife, daughter and son; oh, what a tangled web. I doubt that her handsome Swimming New Zealand pay was docked while she toiled to boost her husband’s television ratings. I’m told that the New Delhi authorities complained to the New Zealand Olympic Association about Cameron’s attempts to use her press credentials to gain access to the New Zealand swimmers.

The result, in New Delhi, was that Swimming New Zealand paid for Cameron’s absentee management and Sky Television hired a bloody hopeless commentator. I would have thought anyone with an ounce of sense in Swimming New Zealand management would have said, “That’s the last time Cameron is pulling that trick.” But life continues to surprise. Just how wrong can you be?

The Ineson Report comes and goes and bugger me Cameron is on her way to Shanghai. Hubby Cameron from Sky Sport has come to the party and Wifey Cameron will be streaming into every New Zealand sitting room telling us all about the swimming. And while she is making a hash of that, remember she will still be drawing her Swimming New Zealand pay. But worse she will be hovering; a Sky sponsored poltergeist tearing the heart out of the New Zealand swim team. Remember 80% of the swim team told Ineson this woman was useless. Now she is back. Imagine how those swimmers feel about having those red rimmed glasses drilling into their soul. I can’t stand it and have cancelled my Sky contract.

From what I’ve heard, Sky Television may have given Cameron a job but Swimming New Zealand has been complicit. I’m told Swimming New Zealand arranged Cameron’s visa and have included her name on a list of Swimming New Zealand people going to Shanghai. Three weeks after she should have been booted out of swimming and she’s off to the World Championships on a visa provided by the Coulter gang.

Except this time the High Performance Governance Committee must carry the bulk of the blame. They met me in an Auckland pub. They asked me to believe they would deliver a new beginning. They asked for my tolerance. Instead they have delivered the same old, same old; Cameron on the plane, with the team, on her way to China. I guess that’s about all you can expect from Ross Butler, insurance salesman. While I expected no better from Butler I am disappointed in Norfolk and Fitch. Norfolk promised much as a representative of swimmers who desperately needed representation. Instead she fell for the oldest management trick of them all and accepted a job on a management committee. You don’t believe it’s a management committee? Why the hell else is it called “Governance” then? Helen and Alison, you are now responsible for Cameron still being on the Swimming New Zealand payroll. You are responsible for her being in Shanghai. You are compromised beyond belief. You cannot play both sides of the management fence.

And SPARC, Swimming New Zealand is going about its business as usual, as though your Ineson Report did not exist; as though your money was theirs. What Swimming New Zealand did in the open yesterday, it does today behind the smokescreen of its High Performance Governance Committee. SPARC, you are being conned by guys who are masters of that skill. You proved beyond any doubt that Cameron was a disaster. Barely a person you interviewed thought she was up to the job. Coach Regan can’t stand her. A fact that’s hardly surprising given the way she has treated him. And yet in spite of all that there she will be, in the middle of China, in the heart of the New Zealand swim team. Whatever way you look at it, Peter Miskimmin, your organization is being treated with derision.

It is impossible to imagine how any organization could work so hard to screw the chances of its best athletes. Ross Butler announces on the Swimming New Zealand website that, “They travel as one team, supporting each other,” and at the same time he has Mark O’Connor down at the Chinese Embassy buying Cameron a visa. Is Butler intentionally dishonest or is he so stupid he does not understand what 80% of his members are saying; are pleading for him to recognize. Cameron is as divisive as all can be. There is no chance, none at all, of the New Zealand team being “one team” while Cameron is within a hundred miles of the Jade Buddha Temple. As they say in the USA, “Wow, that Swimming New Zealand sure is a piece of work.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2011 at 11:53 pm and is filed under New Zealand . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Chris

    What the ……. ??

    That is absolutely disgusting. There is no way she should be going. How bloody insulting. She should never have been a commentator in Delhi, while on the SNZ payroll. That is such a conflict of interest. I too had heard that there was an official complaint made to SNZ from the Commonwealth Games Federation about her.

    And apart from the fact that she is rubbish in the commentary box, the coverage was worse at Trials in April which was just sickening. It was nothing more than “how many times can I get a plug in for the High Performance Centre”? It was hours of wall-to-wall self-promotion and propaganda, right in the middle of the SPARC review no less. She is also famously vindictive and it was evident then, the swimmers (and the coaches) she was trying to marginalise.

    So nothing is going to change, then David, is it?

    No, actually, it is worse. She is going up to China, and still in her job. How the hell could you read that damning report which pointed so directly at Cameron (and Byrne/Coulter/Board) as being the reason for the dysfunctional HP programme and expect to still see her in the job more than a month later. It beggars belief.

    Can you imagine? She now knows that these swimmers (who were part of the more than 70 or 80 people interviewed by Ineson) want her gone and she will now have a microphone and TV audience of thousands and the platform to vent her spleen. How disturbing is that?

    Do these people not know how offensive this is?

    I did comment about Ross Butler on an earlier post: http://www.swimwatch.net/2011/06/the-good-the-bad-and-the-very-very-ugly.html#comments
    I’m not surprised you fell for it David. Ross Butler who gets wheeled out every now and then when things start getting difficult in the Board. All smooth-talking (and yes, of course, insurance industry). Promising the world. But he is hopelessly out of his depth in elite sport, out of touch, and most certainly not independent. No David, he is there to protect the Board, make no mistake.

    But I am really gutted about Helen and Ali. They are the only genuine ones, desperate to make a difference. But I’m afraid they have been stitched up badly on this one and are being used. In their youthfulness, they wouldn’t have seen it coming, but why should they? They are trusting and want the best for the swimmers. But I think you are right – they are no longer effective representing the swimmer’s interests when they are now part of the problem. A bloody shame, a real shame.

  • David

    By way of clarification on the Helen Norfolk and Alison Fitch position. I began my working life as a mamagement trainee for Thomas Borthwick & Sons Ltd. They were a British company who owned four large meat processing plants in New Zealand. Whenever we found a union delegate, good at his or her job, it was standard practice to offer them a management position. The skills that made him or her a good union delegate usually worked well in management. More important though it neutralized the trouble they caused in the union. And that is what has happened here. Helen’s effectivness as a swimmer’s representative has been compromised and neutralized. In the future, if I was a swimmer, would I trust her? Umm, I don’t know. There would always be that doubt – who’s side is she actually on – mine or her new mates Cameron and Butler.

    Tonight I heard that SNZ distributed a letter instructing the swimmers and Jan Cameron on how to fill out the visa forms for China. The letter includes the instruction to Jan Cameron to tell the Embassy that all her expenses are being paid by SNZ, that she is insured by SNZ, that she is staying in the SNZ team hotel and that she should classify herself as a swimmer/coach/team leader for SNZ. If this is right – is SNZ really paying for this woman to fly to China to work for Sky Television. Can that possibly be true? Are we still paying for someone that 80% of us have told Butler and Norfolk and Fitch is not up to the job. Those trusted to protect really have turned to the dark side.

    SPARC you must stop this abuse of taxpayer money and young sporting talent.

  • David

    Ten hours after this story appeared the following email was distributed to all the members of the New Zealand team travelling to Shanghai. The emails author was Mike Byrne.

    “I want to let you know that Jan will no longer be travelling to Shanghai as part of the Swimming New Zealand contingent. We need Jan here in New Zealand during this time to provide input into the matters arising from the Ineson report that the newly formed High Performance Governance Committee are currently considering.”

    The sport of swimming is to be truly thankful that someone (I have no idea who) has had shown sufficient concern to prevent SNZ from careering down a pretty destructive path.

  • Chris

    Ah, don’t hold your breath – she’s still going.

    As with all things SNZ, Byrne’s email above is full of double-speak. I have heard that Ross Butler and others have been saying that “of course Jan is not going as part of the SNZ team. SHE IS GOING AS PART OF THE SKY COMMENTARY TEAM”. No different to last year then!

    If Sky wants to have her as a commentator, that is their choice AS LONG as she is not employed as GMPP for SNZ at the same time (apart from the fact that it would still be completely inappropriate to have her anywhere near a microphone given the publishing of the Ineson Report). But knowing how gutless and spineless SNZ are, expect to hear Jan Cameron, General Manager of Performance and Pathways (what a bloody stupid title) of SNZ on a Sky TV near you sometime soon.

    What I don’t get here is why we are in the disgusting position today that we are even having this conversation. Byrne, Cameron and Coulter shouldn’t even be there. The above email from Byrne to the swimmers (I presume they were the recipients) was ONLY the result of a clear outcry (thank you Swimwatch) and I can guarantee it wasn’t initiated by Byrne.

    BUT the thing that absolutely astounds me is what the hell is going on in their heads when they think that somehow it was OK to even think of sending her up to Shanghai in the first place, business as usual, “what’s the problem?”

    The arrogant decision-making and bumbling incompetence that has them going after a 17 year-old for political point-scoring; our revered leader on national TV and radio pronouncing that no-one is going to lose their job or resign and “we are struggling to put our finger on it”; forming a committee to REVIEW THE REVIEW, with the Chairman of that committee that wouldn’t know the difference in the order of strokes between an IM and a medley relay; Chairman of the Board who pronounces that a starting-block is going to solve the problems with a backstroker’s starts and turns; a CEO that pronounces up and down the country that he can’t do his job because of the Constitution; a major restructuring being bulldozed down the Surf NZ track of oblivion; unknown person/persons changing previously published AGM minutes in order to mysteriously delete clauses that they don’t want to be held accountable to; the coach that has the most swimmers on the Worlds team including the swimmer with arguably the best prospects, not being named on the team; …… and it goes on and on and on!!

    Unfortunately, I think this story still has legs. I fear we will still have Cameron “moonlighting” with Sky.

  • Chris, whoever you are, you’re priceless :)

  • David

    Mister Clive – Everyone has a price! I think Chris’ may be half a dozen people with cartons of personal effects leaving Pelorus House for the last time. Go Chris!

  • After that email, if Cameron does turn up in China it means Byrne has flat out lied to us. He can never be forgiven if that is the case. That would be the action of scum unworthy to sit in the office he has occupied for car too long. Chris I hope you are wrong. I would be saddened to have my opinion of any human
    an being brought down that low. I guess time will tell.