What values are driving Brand Bafana?

The morning after, apparently shaken by the realisation that they might have gambled away the support of the nation in one fell swoop, the Bafana players had a change of mind. Said Matthew Booth, who was part of the players' negotiation delegation: “This whole thing really did not have to happen like this, but we have decided to accept the offer that SAFA (originally) proposed to us... The coach told us that he did not want to see something like this rocking the camp on the eve of a tournament of this magnitude.”

‘Branded as unpatriotic and opportunistic'

Booth added they were hurt by the hostility that greeted their demands for higher incentives:

“We have been labelled as greedy, unpatriotic and opportunistic, and some even went as far as saying we were holding the country to ransom... This whole thing has put us back by a long way on the eve of a major tournament. It is really sad because we had been together as a team for a very long time since arriving in camp last month. Now we have to deal with all this and we are struggling... It's very sad that we've been branded on newspaper pages like that. This issue was resolved last week but it has now put some of the guys back psychologically."

Are the media to blame?

Booth concluded that “the players are really disappointed because the media has never been supportive of us to begin with.” Blaming the media for Bafana's fallout with the public betrays a sense of irreverence - after all, the media are many times a team's conduit of communication to their fans, and striking an antagonistic relationship with the media is a losing battle from the start. Among others, the chief reasons for the fallout with the public are the following:

• Timing: SAFA VP Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana said he was surprised by the timing of a dispute that put South Africa in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, just four days before the start of the Confederations Cup. "This is quite embarrassing," Nonkonyana said. "We can ill-afford our attention to be distracted by something as embarrassing as this and it is really a surprise that the boys would wait until now to do this.”
  
• Repeat offenders: It is not the first time that Bafana players are making headlines for attempting to renegotiate the terms of their contractual agreements with SAFA. Back in 1997, before taking to the pitch in a friendly against England at Old Trafford, and then again at the African Nations Cup in Egypt in 2006, did players' demands for higher than agreed-upon bonuses spill over into public debates and cause much harm to the team brand.

Brand damage recovery

With the credibility of Brand Bafana at stake, what can be done to recover the brand damage incurred just before the Confed Cup is kicking off?

• Apology: Rather than trying to explain this issue away, the Bafana players should come out in the open and apologise to the nation. After all, errare humanum est (erring is human) and we tend to be much more forgiving when a genuine (and heartfelt) apology is offered.
  
• Transparency: Who is Brand Bafana? What is the personality of the team, and most importantly what are the shared values of this brand? Up to now, the public knows next to nothing about the team's identity and the brand character. It was German defender Christian Metzelder who summed up the 2006 hosting team's identity when he said that “we can live uninhibited and carefree, and we can now also play football in this way.”
  
• Efficiency: In testing times, there is no better recovery for a sporting team than to use this opportunity and prove themselves on the pitch. Convincing wins against Iraq and New Zealand, and an inspiring performance against the World's Number One, Spain, would go a long way towards reinstating Brand Bafana in the eyes and minds of the public.

With just two days to go to the kickoff of the 2009 Confederations Cup, will the Bafana players be up to the task of seizing their second chance and making the nation proud again?