Decision on Auckland FC's delayed women's team was also subject to delays. Photo: Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz
Analysis - Why has the Australian Professional Leagues taken so long to confirm the worst kept secret in A-Leagues football?
Maybe they couldn't find the right words to justify why Auckland FC would not be entering the women's competition in the 2025/26 season.
They could have said they were being fiscally responsible by not expanding the women's league when they reportedly owe Football Australia millions of dollars.
Or that they were distracted while they grappled with issues of the influence of offshore betting syndicates tainting the game for a second consecutive season.
Making sure players get paid would have also been on their radar.
But instead A-Leagues executive chair, Stephen Conroy, issued a one-line statement to RNZ - on repeat.
On 9 April, five weeks before the A-League Women 2024/25 Grand Final, the statement: "We are finalising our planning for the upcoming Ninja A-League Women 2025/26 season, and we hope to make a further announcement in the near future" was sent via email in response to six questions about the next women's season and Auckland's participation.
Ten weeks later, on 18 June, multiple questions were put to the A-Leagues and the exact same one-line response was sent on Conroy's behalf.
On 9 July, the message changed to: "We're hoping to have more of an update in the coming few weeks that we can share".
"Planning" was taking that long, all while existing women's teams were signing players, coaches and making preparations for a season that those who run the game said was still not finalised.
If Auckland were to be involved in the 2025/26 season they would be on the back foot if the team's existence wasn't announced while the opposition were loading up their squads. It was clear Auckland would not have a women's team in the competition yet - but no-one official wanted to publicly say so.
Auckland FC deferred any questions to the league pointing out that their comment was reliant on the competition boss speaking first.
It was a line chief executive Nick Becker stuck with on Friday when he all but confirmed it could be a couple of seasons before Auckland FC have a women's team.
"It is the league's decision, it is their announcement so we're just waiting for them to follow up.
"It's for them to explain and talk about. They control whether we're in or not."
Does some of the blame for this drawn out situation lie with an overly ambitious Auckland FC?
With a new A-League men's license in their hands they were quick to point out they wanted to get a women's team for the 2025/26 season, a proclamation that those with an interest in the women's game latched on to and followed up with.
Their intent was genuine, but had the club not put a timeframe on it from the start they could have ridden the wave of the inevitable initial criticism about investment in a women's A-League team but they would have also bought themselves some time.
They doubled down several times about their commitment to the team and the timing in question to New Zealand media in April and to British media in May.
Auckland FC were not caught off guard by the decision to delay the team. Having joined the men's A-League last season they knew about the process and timeline of unveiling a new side. This was not a case of naively holding on to hope that they would make their own deadline for joining the women's competition too.
"You can be frustrated, you can be angry with these sorts of things but sometimes it's just life," Becker said.
"You look across the league and there's not many occasions where a team has launched both it's men and it's women it does take time. We plan to be around for a long time and you can look back and go 'okay there was a delay there' but in the greater scheme of things we'll have a successful women's team at some point and we look forward to that."
A lot goes on in the background of running professional (and semi-professional) sports teams and competitions that the public don't want or need to know about, but the A-League taking months to find a way to frame a decision in a light most favourable is an own goal.
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