Chairman Rob Morrison says the Phoenix need more support from NZ Football to remain in the A-League.

Rob Morrison fears New Zealand Football (NZF) won't lift a hand to save the Wellington Phoenix.

The Welnix and Phoenix chairman has not spoken publicly since Football Federation Australia (FFA) denied his request for a 10-year extension to the club's A-League licence.

Morrison wouldn't address the licence or FFA on Saturday, but did want to state the case for why Wellington and New Zealand should want the Phoenix to avoid extinction.

The Wellington one is pure economics. Welnix want to help fund a high-performance unit and English-language school in the city, but won't without a long-term A-League licence.

But the most emotive reason Welnix want to hang around is to save football in New Zealand.

"Personally, I really don't think the penny has dropped at New Zealand Football, as to how critical maintaining the Phoenix is. If we lose the Nix, football in this country goes back years," Morrison said.

"You've had millions of dollars in private funding go into football, via the Phoenix. There hasn't been a bigger single infusion of funding into a football team, as far as I'm aware, than what we've seen privately go into the Phoenix.

"I think in the last 18 months, 27 or 28 players have represented New Zealand, from under-17 level through to senior level, from the Phoenix club. There is not a club in New Zealand that even gets into double figures."

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That's worth something to Welnix. A 'thank you' from NZF would be a start, but more important at this time is a tangible show of support.

Morrison said the Wellington City Council, Westpac Stadium and the Phoenix's sponsors had been magnificent. The moral support of Yellow Fever and the nine other A-League clubs has been appreciated also.

But a pathway from the junior ranks to professional football now exists in this country because of the Phoenix, its two academies and extensive youth and reserve-team playing programmes.

"It's critical that New Zealand Football step up. We've heard plenty of words, but we need to see some actions as well," said Morrison.

"For us to stay around, we need to understand that other people recognise it's important. What I've consistently said is Welnix is not the beneficiary of this and we're not. Wellington is, football is increasingly, and so what we want to see is the people that are the beneficiaries actually standing up and saying: OK we need to be vocal about supporting this, but we also need to put in place some actionable things. It's quite critical.

"New Zealand needs to change its thinking around how vital the Phoenix are to the development of players and they need to change their view on the high performance pathway and the fact that the Phoenix is critical to the development of high performance football.

"I know that High Performance Sport [New Zealand] have told them that."

Morrison did not sound like a man about to wind up a business and tell everyone they were out of jobs, or academies players that they'd need to further their development overseas. Particularly when he was on the subject of a high-performance unit and language school.

Done in conjunction with the Wellington council, the unit would be up and running within "three or four years."

Too many national bodies, and athletes, opted to base themselves in Auckland now. Welnix want to halt that "drift north" and felt this was a way.

The other strand is the school. The Phoenix's attempts to get foreign players into their Auckland and Wellington academies have shown there is a demand for English-language training too, which the club have been unable to provide.

In general, it's an industry Morrison said Wellington had not embraced.

"We don't have a single school in the top-20 in New Zealand, in terms of foreign language students, and it's a huge industry now. Foreign language education is our fifth or sixth-biggest export industry now and Wellington's massively under-represented."