South African Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour has pleaded with national coach Jomo Sono to end his feud with Gordon Igesund, the country's most successful coach and former adviser to the team.
Igesund this week withdrew as Bafana Bafana's technical adviser after Sono criticised his coaching style.
Balfour said he had spoken to Sono on Friday morning about the public row with Igesund, who has won three league titles in the past six seasons, all at different clubs.
The Minister said he told Sono to try utilise all the resources available to him, especially expertise, for South Africa to have a successful World Cup campaign.
"He saw my point when I said the best thing would have been for the two of them to sit together, iron out any miscommunication and then move together to make Bafana Bafana the winning team that we want it to be," Balfour said.
"I would like to see a situation where a winning coach like Gordon utilised for the World Cup journey, because he's got experience," he added.
Clive Barker, coach of the 1996 Nations Cup-winning squad, also called on Igesund and Sono to patch up their differences for the sake of South African football.
"The fight between the two is crazy," Barker stated.
"I wish they would both grow up, realise that South African football is bigger than both of them and get on with it."
Barker said he believed the ideal combination for Bafana Bafana's World Cup campaign is for Sono to take up a mentoring role with Igesund coaching quietly in the background.
However, he added that Igesund should not have responded to Sono's criticisms of his coaching style.
"Gordon's reaction is not helping South African football," he said.
"What happened to Carlos Queiroz was exactly what happened to me and Jomo was the architect of that too. But I chose to stay silent."
Queiroz resigned in March, and has since blamed Sono for undermining him during the 2002 Nations Cup campaign in Mali with racist allegations conducted through the media.