The South African Football Association (Safa) owes an apology to both Banyana Banyana and South Africans, said former Safa vice president Ria Ledwaba at the weekend.
Last Sunday, the women's national team boycotted their farewell match against Botswana in protest against, among other things, the contracts they were offered by Safa.
Squad members said their contracts did not include the $30,000 appearance fee promised by Fifa to each of the 23 players.
Ledwaba, who has been in the football industry for years, was speaking at a charity event in Mamelodi over the weekend.
Ledwaba said what happened is a shame and an embarrassment to our country.
"An opportunity to showcase to the country how ready the girls are was lost. The players were done wrong and it is painful to supporters who came to the stadium to support Banyana. In other countries supporters would have walked out of the stadium," she said.
The former Ria Stars Football Club owner who stood against Danny Jordaan for the Safa presidency said she welcomed the Motsepe Foundation's efforts in rescuing the situation.
The squad left on Wednesday for New Zealand after the dispute with Safa was resolved, due to the Motsepe Foundation's intervention.
Founded by billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe and his wife Precious Motsepe, the foundation pledged funds to resolve the dispute.
Ledwaba said she wished there could be more organisations like the Motsepe Foundation.
"I wish a lot like them would come on board. But why can't we learn? Why is this crisis repeating itself? This is not the first time that we're finding ourselves in such a crisis," she said.
Ledwaba said she hopes this will be a learning curve. "Although I don't know how long we're going to learn. It can't be that we want to be rescued all the time.
"Safa must evaluate itself and hopefully see if all the complaints mean anything. Do they even realise that they're demoralising supporters and a team that is going to a World Cup? We have an organisation that we love so much that is in crisis," she said.
