‘I feel let down’: Complainants to sport integrity agency wait 15 months for resolution

Source: Radio New Zealand

When multihull sailor Liz Alonzi first spoke to investigators from the Sport Integrity Commission, she was asked if she would like to add her complaint to the “melting pot” of allegations about the culture of yachting in New Zealand.

At the time Alonzi drew comfort from knowing she was one of many from within the sport to blow the whistle. There was power in numbers, she thought.

“I felt hopeful. I walked away from that conversation thinking something would be done about it,” Alonzi said of her March 2025 interview with investigators.

Three months earlier, the commission had opened an investigation into Yachting New Zealand following a raft of complaints including allegations of aggressive behaviour, unfair and unsafe selection processes, and serious misconduct among both athletes and staff.

The investigation was considered the first major test of the new watchdog agency’s muscle.

More than a year later, the inquiry into Yachting NZ continues to drag on, leaving dozens of complainants in the dark.

The unresolved process ultimately drove Alonzi away from the sport.

“It’s been really detrimental,” she said.

“Because the behaviour problems from my original complaint have never been addressed, and the people involved faced no repercussions and continued targeting me, I chose to take a pretty big step away from yacht racing in Auckland.”

Alonzi is not alone – concerns about delays have emerged across other sports.

In a separate inquiry into Boxing NZ and its head coach Billy Meehan, launched in May last year, concerns have been raised that the lack of a timely resolution has further harmed athletes. 1News reported last month that several top athletes had pulled out of Commonwealth Games contention while they awaited the commission’s findings.

The drawn-out investigations were fuelling broader concerns about whether the agency, established in July 2024 to provide independent oversight of New Zealand sport, was equipped to respond effectively to serious complaints.

Several complainants told RNZ the length of time it was taking for cases to be investigated was eroding confidence in the commission.

Concerns had also been raised about the level of buy-in from the wider sports sector, with just four national sport and recreation bodies having adopted the commission’s National Code of Integrity.

The criticism comes as the commission this week held its inaugural wānanga in Auckland, as it seeks to build support for its work and lift engagement across the sector. The event, which was attended by around 250 sports leaders, included a keynote speech from former world number four tennis star Jelena Dokic, who had spoken publicly about abuse in sport.

Sport Integrity Commission chief executive, Rebecca Rolls, said investigations could take time because of the number and complexity of complaints, but it was committed to a thorough and fair process.

“Public confidence takes a while to get, and it’s quickly lost,” said Rolls.

“I know how important it is to have matters resolved at the earliest point and as quickly as possible, and that’s definitely my objective.

“But rushing can risk some flawed outcomes that will further cause harm or present legal frailties. We know that confidence comes from good sustainable outcomes, independence and fairness.”

Both the Yachting NZ and Boxing NZ investigations were launched under section 32 of the Sport and Recreation Act, which gives the commission special investigatory powers if it considers there is a threat to integrity.

Rolls said this legal lever was only used for the most serious and complex cases.

“That power [under section 32] was intended to be for a small number of cases that met high public interest threshold and by their nature are big and complex with multiple complainants. And that’s exactly what’s happened.

“The investigations have ticked those boxes well and truly.”

A “melting pot” of complaints is difficult to distill into findings.

Career-defining delays

For disaffected members of the high performance sailing community, the timing felt significant.

The establishment of the Sport Integrity Commission in July 2024 coincided with mounting frustration over Yachting NZ’s handling of Olympic selections.

A series of messy selection disputes had highlighted what former top windsurfer Bruce Trotter described as “deeply troubling process issues” and a “complete disregard” for best practice – allegations forcefully denied by Yachting NZ at the time.

It also brought to the surface other long-standing grievances in the sport, including allegations of sexism, harassment and bullying.

Following the Paris Games, in which the NZL sailing team brought home two medals, Yachting NZ initiated an “independent evaluation” of the Olympic cycle, dubbed Project Arotake.

But questions over the scope and design of that review, led by former NZ Olympic Committee boss Kereyn Smith, saw many seek the intervention of the Sport Integrity Commission.

Olympic boardsailor turned elite coach JP Tobin was among the initial wave of complainants to the commission.

He believed his complaint “paled in comparison” to some of the other allegations brought forward, and was particularly concerned about the impact the delays were having on athletes.

Tobin warned the delays were untenable in a high performance environment.

In the time since complainants first stepped forward with their concerns to the commission, Yachting NZ completed its own review of its Olympic sailing programme, and had forged ahead in implementing the recommendations from it.

As the mid-way point in the LA Olympic cycle nears, selection policies were being developed and campaign plans enacted.

For complainants, there was a sense the sport had moved on without them – with no clear accountability for those accused of wrongdoing.

“The high performance environment shifts fast – it’s super dynamic. So an organisation that’s tasked with this mandate needs to be able to respond,” Tobin said.

“So from where I’m sitting, this is not an organisation that’s fit for the purpose, because some of these complaints are seriously affecting people’s lives.

“It’s potentially career-defining because people are walking away, or choosing not to campaign in certain classes because the people they’ve complained about are still around.”

Tobin was also frustrated at what he saw as a lack of transparency and communication from the commission. He claimed over the past year he had received only a few, vague updates on the status of the investigation.

That criticism had been echoed by club stalwart Allan Roper, who lodged a complaint with the commission in January last year over alleged breaches of competition rules and Yachting NZ’s disputes processes.

Roper, who had competed internationally, said when the commission was first established he was hopeful that what he saw as long-standing issues within his sport would be resolved.

“I thought, here we go, we’ve finally got an independent body with teeth,” Roper said.

“But we’re now 15 months down the track [since the investigation started] and it seems like nothing’s happened. I do feel let down.”

Earlier this year Roper wrote to the minister for sport and recreation, Mark Mitchell, to express his concerns with the process.

“Significant public funding has been allocated to support the Commission’s work. Given this level of taxpayer investment, I believe there is a strong public interest in ensuring that investigations are conducted efficiently, transparently, and brought to a timely conclusion,” he wrote.

It was not the first time the minister had been called upon to step in.

Following last month’s media reports that some of the country’s leading women boxers had pulled out of Commonwealth Games contention as a result of delays with the investigation into Boxing NZ, Mitchell requested a briefing with the commission.

Mitchell told RNZ that at the meeting he had impressed upon the commission’s leaders the need for transparency with all parties involved in investigations.

“The Integrity Commission is still very new. It’s only just been formed and stood up, so they’re still building their own cadence and momentum,” said Mitchell.

“But I think that it is critically important that there’s transparency in keeping parties informed, keeping them apprised of what’s happening with the investigation, at what stage they’re at, any of the challenges that they’re facing inside it, and just being completely transparent around that.”

Talking code

Rebecca Rolls did not accept that the commission was falling short.

The chief executive said in cases of both sailing and boxing – the commission’s two publicly notified investigations – volume and wide-ranging nature of complaints had made investigations difficult to resolve quickly.

She argued that was, in part, by design.

Rolls said the commission’s work marked a shift from the more limited, often sport-led reviews into elite sports environments such as cycling, hockey, football and canoe racing that have played out in the past.

“If we go back a few years, while there was some really great work done, a lot of the investigations back in the day were by consent and pursuant to a terms of reference,” she said.

“So the investigations were quite confined. I guess that was in a box and that’s all it could be, but it wasn’t necessarily covering all the right things or in the right direction.”

While the high-profile investigations had captured the headlines, Rolls said they did not paint the full picture.

In its first year of operation, the commission received 283 complaints across 70 sport and recreation organisations.

More than half were resolved early through facilitation, mediation or warning letters, while 26 percent remained active and 16 percent were deemed out of scope.

“If you think about it in that context, it’s a very, very small number that end up in a section 32 investigation.”

Under the commission’s broad remit it is also responsible for the anti-doping work previously carried out by Drug Free Sport NZ, which was folded into the new agency, including drug testing, investigations and education.

According to reports published by the Sport Integrity Commission, in its first year of operation it carried out more than 1100 drug tests, with six athletes sanctioned for rule violations.

Two sports integrity experts, who spoke to RNZ on background, said the concerns emerging from sailing and boxing pointed to deeper structural tensions within the model itself.

They questioned whether the commission’s broad remit was workable – particularly the way its safeguarding role, dealing with complaints such as bullying and abuse, sat alongside its regulatory functions like anti-doping and competition manipulation, where clear rules and evidential thresholds apply.

The vast majority of complaints fell into the former category, in which behaviour was often difficult to define, prove and resolve.

The experts also pointed to the background of many investigators, noting policing experience did not always translate neatly to workplace or safeguarding inquiries.

Rolls, however, was confident the issue was not resourcing.

“I’m really confident that if I look across the investigations we have, hiring more people, for example, wouldn’t necessarily change the timing.

“We also have the ability to bring in, and we have done in some cases, external support to help with that resourcing.”

The challenges facing the commission were not unique to New Zealand.

In Australia, Sport Integrity Australia was inundated with more than 600 complaints in its first year, with administrators later acknowledging they were unprepared for the volume and complexity.

In the United States, the Center for SafeSport has faced sustained criticism over delays, transparency and independence.

Back here, a low uptake of sports adopting the commission’s National Code of Integrity was also hampering efforts for speedier resolutions.

The code, which was introduced in June last year, set out minimum standards to help organisations manage integrity issues.

Rolls said it also provided the commission with a separate set of powers that could be used to address integrity breaches.

“They’ll be a bit quicker, can be earlier in the process, and we will have additional information gathering powers under that regime,” said Rolls.

“So it means we can get through cases a bit quicker and then at the end we can use a disciplinary panel to make some decisions.”

The problem is, only four national sport and recreation organisations – NZ Esports Federation, Scouts Aotearoa, Weightlifting New Zealand and Ice Hockey New Zealand – have adopted the code. 

This week the commission announced a fifth adoptee, mountain-biking charity WORD Youth.

The low uptake on the code, which was finalised in the middle of last year, has led to further questions about the agency’s effectiveness.

Rolls said she expected uptake to increase over the coming year, noting larger organisations faced more complex adoption processes.

Sailing on

Earlier this month, complainants in the sailing investigation received an update from the commission.

“We have continued to make substantial progress, including engagement with Yachting NZ regarding the information obtained and the allegations raised, and they have cooperated with our enquiries.”

The letter went on to say the commission was in the final phase of drafting the report and concluding the investigation.

It is understood Yachting NZ received a similar letter.

The organisation, now under the leadership of Steve Armitage following the departure of long-serving chief executive David Abercrombie last year, said it had continued to cooperate with the investigation.

“We’re committed to carefully considering the outcomes as part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen how we support and serve the yachting and boating community,” the organisation said in a statement.

For Liz Alonzi, she had come to terms that she would not find closure in the pages of a report.

“I know people who managed the integrity investigation into Gymnastics New Zealand [in 2018]. From talking to them and telling them what I was experiencing with the commission and what’s been going on, their recommendation to me has literally been just focus on healing yourself because you’re not going to get anything out of this,” she said.

“But I’d like to think that I’ve helped make it better for others.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand