Money wins over morality
Earlier this year Steve Tew, the chief executive of New Zealand Rugby, said that keeping the Crusaders name along with the club’s symbols of knights on horseback was no longer ‘‘tenable’’. So the money men rode into town.
They branded the team from Christchurch with a new logo but they kept the old provocative name. And they branded us fools.
There were a lot of mealy words, but the bottom line, and that’s the line they seem to care about most, was that changing the name of the brand would cost too much. Chief executive Colin Mansbridge, board chairman Grant Jarrold and NZ Rugby head of professional rugby Chris Lendrum came before us and said that the Crusaders name was here to stay.
And not for the first time in modern, diverse New Zealand, a culturally and ethnically sensitive decision was being fronted by three people who were men and pretty white.
It troubles me that two of the men at the very top of this process are a banker and an accountant. Who was holding the moral
The Crusaders have ditched the knights on horseback as part of their recent rebranding, but have retained the team’s name.
compass? Where were the philosophers, where were the men and women of ethics, where was the Muslim community?
The game was up in June when NZ Rugby chairman Brent Impey said: ‘‘The reality is that adidas have got to make jerseys, there’s merchandising and that sort of stuff. You can’t just change the name of a professional team when there are existing contracts. So definitely not. There’s no intention and never has been any intention that the Crusaders name would change in 2020.’’
The dread phrase is ‘‘that sort of stuff’’ by which Impey means
money. The word which kept coming up again and again at the launch of the ‘‘new’’ Crusaders was brand. The Crusaders have done what’s right for their brand, not for the whole community in which they live.
The press conference was dominated by brand. It culminated when Mansbridge said: ‘‘This club has an incredibly proud history, and celebrating that history is always going to be a vital part of our brand story.’’
In order to tell ‘‘the brand story’’ – and please save us from such etymological vandalism – the Crusaders brought in design experts, a policy development firm and a research company to ask people what they thought.
Mansbridge asserted, on more than one occasion, that the Crusaders hadn’t fully engaged with the Muslim community because it was ‘‘pretty obvious’’ they didn’t want to be involved.
‘‘We didn’t want them to be in a position where they had to ask. Frankly, they are too polite to say what they feel.’’
This is not very inclusive on several levels. There is the uncomfortable manner of the use of we and they. And then there is the apparent obliviousness as to the cause of why the Muslim community might be reluctant to get involved.
Could it be fear? Fifty-one of their number have been slaughtered by an extremist. Many fear the evangelical elements of the team’s support.
Enough have previously questioned the name, a name that cannot be wiped clean by rebranding. Language matters. No team would call itself the Gisborne Gestapo. It’s only a few verbal miles south to reach the (Canterbury) Crusaders.
I would not have minded this whole tawdry affair so much if the Crusaders had said: ‘‘We are from Christchurch. We represent a city that was built on Christian values and we uphold those values. Muslims are welcome in our city but not at the expense of Christianity. We are Crusaders for our faith.’’
But of course the franchise are Crusaders for our dosh. And most of their paying fanbase think it’s political correctness gone mad to change the name. That is what they say online and that is what they have told the research groups. So the name remains and even the horses have been ridden back into town, just not saddled by blokes wielding swords.
I feel for fans who think they are losing part of their heritage. But the Crusaders are only a generation old and most of these names were dreamed up by an advertising agency or, like the Hurricanes, by some blokes in the back of a pub.
How much better if the Crusaders had become the Shepherds. The name speaks to local agriculture, but also of pastoral care as well as reaching across faiths. Muhammad spoke of each of God’s messengers being a shepherd at one point in their lives, as he himself had been as a young man.
Surely if Tew, one of the founding fathers, was open to change, then the Crusaders too could have reached out. But sad to say, the club has botched the opportunity. And for what? A few pieces of silver.