
After an thorough selection process including written submissions and interviews with the three candidates, the Coach Appointments Panel, Todd Wackrow, Paul Manera and Brendan McGurk, decided to appoint Shiraz Soysa in the role for the campaign.
Shiraz was the Head Coach of the last campaign to the Flag World Championships in Miami in 2016, and has many years experience coaching flag and contact American Football in New Zealand, primarily with Auckland's Tamaki Lightning.
Shiraz's proven ability to deliver a successful campaign before, combined with a strong plan for the upcoming campaign and approach to culture development that aligned with NZAFF's strategy gave the panel the confidence that he was the best choice for the position.
The Panel were very happy with the quality and enthusiasm of all the candidates and hopes to be able to include them in the campaign as it moves forward, and in the growth of Flag Football in general.
The next phase is for Shiraz to present a plan for the campaign to the Board for approval. Once that is done then the campaign will kick off starting with team trials. The NZAFF board would like to re-iterate that at this stage the Campaign is still under review, and several milestones will still need to be achieved (especially around the "pay to play" funding) before the formal decision is made to send a team to Korea.
There to date have been over 70 registrations of interest in trialing for the team which means that there will be a good pool of talent for Shiraz to pick his team from.