New Zealand soccer has been accused of discrimination and faces being taken to the Human Rights Commission by its own women's association. The Woman's Soccer Association of New Zealand (Wsanz) is angry New Zealand Soccer (NZS) denied the national women's team a chance to qualify for the Athens Olympics. Wsanz president Allan McLarin said NZS was guilty of discrimination because if the team had been male it would have been sent to an Olympic qualifying tournament. He is talking with the Human Rights Commission to see if it has a case for discrimination. A Human Rights Commission spokesperson said it was currently evaluating the case before taking the matter further. McLarin also plans to go to Fifa, soccer's powerful world body, to secure more resources for women's soccer in New Zealand. McLarin said NZS pulled the women's team out of the Olympic qualifier after receiving a late invitation to replace Sweden in the four-nation Australia Cup against Australia, China and North Korea last month. Australia claimed Oceania's single Olympic berth last weekend with a 7-0 thumping of Fiji in the final of the one-sided qualifying tournament. New Zealand, the only true OFC challenger to the Aussies, pulled out in order to begin preparations for the 2007 women's World Cup. Wsanz became part of New Zealand Soccer in 1999, when the women's team was 15th in the world. It has now dropped to 21st and McLarin wants to make sure there is no repeat of the 0-11 record loss to North Korea at last month's invitation tournament. "New Zealand Soccer has again settled for second-best for our women players, in substituting the Australia Cup invitation for the Olympic qualifying tournament," he said. "Our women's national team deserved both good preparation games and also a chance to go to Athens." New Zealand lost 0-2 to Australia in the invitation tournament. McLarin sees the non-entry of the under-19 women's side from its world cup qualifying tournament as a "further example of discrimination - boys' age-group teams have always been entered into their world cup qualifying tournaments". "It is time for New Zealand Soccer to establish and resource a women's soccer working group dedicated to lifting NZ's activity and achievements." A previous request for such a group was turned down by the national body last May. But McLarin said the 17 regional members association didn't want to see Wsanz split from NZ Soccer. Wsanz held a special general meeting in Wellington last month and McLarin said feelings of concern about the state of the women's game in New Zealand were widespread. NZ Soccer operations manager Alex Hayton expects Fifa will refer Wsanz back to NZS as Fifa only deals with national bodies. He said NZ Soccer felt it was moving in the right direction after its meeting with Wsanz last year. From now on NZS will not send teams - male or female - to every Olympic or World Cup qualifier just for the sake of it. "We are focusing on the structure of the domestic game from the grassroots upwards and getting the development right to eventually produce a good end product," he said. "It's unfortunate the women's senior and under-19 sides were among the first to be affected, but other representative sides will suffer the same fate. This is a fundamental shift (to strengthen the domestic game) and you can't please everyone all the time." Hayton said NZS would hold weekly development sessions for the national women's side, starting next month. New Zealand Soccer director of football Paul Smalley said there was "considerable investment in the women's national team with a long-term view to World Cup and Olympic qualifying campaigns in 2007 and 2008. Step one in that process was the recent international experience at the Australia Cup, where results made clear the considerable work that is required if we are to be competitive on the world stage."