Netball great Liz Ellis has called out Netball Australia for its treatment of players, amid an ongoing pay dispute and an awards night that was boycotted by Super Netball players.
It comes after Netball Australia confirmed it had threatened players contracted to the national team, the Diamonds, with legal action if they did not attend the Netball Australia Awards night.
Ellis also said she did not initially receive an invite to the awards night where an award is named in her honour, only receiving an invitation on the date of the RSVP deadline.
“Firstly I would like to offer my heartfelft congratulations to Courtney Bruce for winning the Liz Ellis Diamond on Saturday night,” Ellis wrote on Instagram.
“I am incredibly disappointed that I was not able to be there in person to present the award to Courtney. For the avoidance of doubt, I want to put on the record that I was sent an invitation to the event on 3 November – which was the deadline for RSVPs. I was assured I could ignore the RSVP deadline. However given that I had been given no prior notice of the date on which the award named after me was to be handed out, I had already committed to another event that night.”
“My disappointment and embarrassment at not being able to attend turned into anger when I was made aware that current Diamonds players and their advisers were threatened with possible legal action if they did not attend the dinner,” Ellis continued.
“As a former Diamonds captain, I cannot believe that the governing body of the sport I love would treat its Diamonds athletes, who are brilliant role models and ambassadors for netball with such callous disregard.”
Ellis offered her support to players who are still in a dispute with the sport’s administration about the next collective bargaining agreement. Domestic players have demanded a revenue sharing model and have now gone eight weeks without pay since the previous collective bargaining agreement expired.
“These are women who have not been paid in eight weeks,” Ellis said.
“Who are fighting for fair pay and conditions not only for themselves but for the players who come after them. Who consider themselves as custodians of the game. And who I suspect would love nothing more than to attend an event where their world-beating heroics of the past twelve months were to be celebrated. Yet who felt so strongly about what they were fighting for, that they were prepared to forgo those celebrations.”
Ellis went on to question the leadership of Netball Australia and if it was capable of navigating the current dispute.
“So yet again netball finds itself in the headlines for the wrong reasons – another crisis entirely of the sport’s own making,” she said.
“This has happened so often in recent times the question must be asked whether Netball Australia is capable of providing the leadership the sport so desperately needs.
“This question must be asked not just by players, or ex-players like me, but by the whole system.”
On Saturday, the day of the awards ceremony, the Australian Netball Players’ Association released a statement explaining that players in the Diamonds were legally obligated to attend the event but supported Super Netball players who had boycotted the event.
“The Diamonds are attending the Netball Australia Awards tonight because we are legally obligated to be present,” the statement read.
“With no agreement on our Collective Player Agreement, (Super Netball) players have been unpaid for nearly eight weeks.
“What we have requested is affordable and sustainable to the game and promotes a genuine partnership to grow the game.”
Image: Liz Ellis Diamond award recipient, Courtney Bruce.