RoundUp: Most talked about club on social media this week

Sibusiso Banda
@SBUDALICIOUS

Kaizer Chiefs became the most talked about South African football club this week, with most  of its politics being debated about on various public social media platforms.

The contribution comes after they were faced with different eye catching publicity (both positive and negative) in just a matter of few days.

It all started over the weekend when newspaper allegation emerged that Amakhosi’s newly appointed head coach Stuart Baxter had “faked” his résumé in order to get the clubs top position.

Baxter, who is due starting the next season, was offered a two year coaching contract with an option of renew in the past week before the bad news emerged.  

The reports claimed that there are “success” irregularities on Baxter's CV, which could not be explained, which start post his Bafana Bafana sacking after failing to qualify them for the 2006 World Cup.

Baxter said in his CV that he had won the championship in Japan in 2006 and had also taken Swedish club Helsingborgs to the last 16 of the Europa League.

The news evoked local and international reactions from football fanatics leading to a flood of responses and trending topics making the clud the most talked about on various social networks especially Twitter and Facebook.

This led to Chief’s Chairman Kaizer Motaung coming out and declaring the clubs public support the Baxter. He explained away the new coach's CV claims with "in his mind, perhaps winning promotion in Japan is [like] winning the title".

On Tuedsay, news surfaced that Chiefs has signed Bafana Bafana defender Siboniso Gaxa whom has been playing oversees. The 28-year-old joins the club after caming from Lierse SK in Belgium where he made 43 appearances during a two-year stint.

Within an hour of the  same afternoon after the signing, the news broke and keywords suchs a "Gaxa" , "Chiefs", "Bexter" and "Amakhosi signing" becaming the trending topics in South Africa.

Its no suprise that with a PR strategy, Chiefs able to swifly set the public ajenda in just a few day. Although the "negetives" are still hauting, the key tool used here to manage the news relied on the clubs official form of communication.

And that is through its twitter account and also throught well briefing its team of spin doctors before their are called on to various media platforns.