Christchurch Netball and Mainland Football have joined forces to build a $20 million ‘fit for purpose’ indoor sports facility suitable for netball, futsal and other sports and cultural and community events, in Christchurch. 

Netsal as the joint venture entity of the Christchurch-based netball and football codes, plans to have the 10-court facility open in late 2021 or early 2022. 

Funding for the project is close to being secured and is expected to come from a significant charitable donation, various community fund grants and other resources available to the Joint Venture parties. 

“We have a short-term opportunity to access an extraordinarily generous donation from an anonymous benefactor who wanted to help sport and youth in the city after the earthquakes,” Christchurch Netball Board Chair Chris Rodda says.

“Netball and football have been in talks about working together on indoor courts for some time. We have encountered a series of obstacles with different sites, but we are now in position to announce that we are making progress on a facility that is long overdue for Christchurch”.

‘It is important that we progress this opportunity quickly while the donation option remains available to us.  We hope the community will rally behind us to demonstrate the importance of this to our community which will help us secure the additional funding that we need to make this happen.”   

“From a netball perspective, it is sad that a generation of young netballers have not had opportunities to play sport without the interruption of inclement weather and on courts that are substandard compared with those in other centres”.

“With the new facility, netball in particular will be able to be offered seven days a week, at times that suit many of our players, rather than just Saturdays as is currently available.”

Chris Rodda says the new facility will cater for netball at a grassroots club level and is a good fit with the Metro Sports Facility where there will be six courts for competition at a higher level. 

 “The ability to bring games indoors in the future is an exciting prospect for the ongoing development and expansion of a game that currently attracts the highest number of women participants in New Zealand. “   

Mainland Football Chief Executive Julian Bowden is equally excited about the benefits the indoor facility will have for football, particularly for the fast-growing Futsal.  “The opportunity to partner with Christchurch Netball in a new Indoor arena will allow Mainland Football to continue to grow and develop Futsal to new levels. Futsal is currently the fastest growing sport in the country and at the moment we are

hamstrung in trying to grow the sport due to a lack of suitable facilities in Christchurch.” Julian Bowden says.

Both sporting codes believe it is a great opportunity for a collaborative approach and to share a facility to be operated by a joint venture group.  

Julian Bowden and Chris Rodda say that the collaboration will complement traditional seasonal usage for both sports but will give extended and ongoing opportunities for off-season development programmes in both codes, opportunities for other forms of the game to be played ‘out of the traditional season’, social games, walking netball, junior development opportunities and for athletes in both codes wishing to play both sports year round in a space that is familiar to them that they can call their sporting home.     

“This is an exciting project in the regeneration of the City and the facility will compliment other planned developments and contributes strongly to physical and mental well-being in the wider community,” they say.  

Further details will be released by Netsal as confidentiality allows. 

In the meantime, all questions regarding the project should be directed to Stephen Barry, Advisor to the Christchurch Netball and Mainland Football Boards. He can be contacted on 021 776-348.