THE Sydney Swans are worried that no one will recognise them. They said so in a memo circulated to football media this week. At least, we think that's what they said.

"The word 'Swans' is central to our core brand identity and key differentiating attribute," it read in part. "The Sydney Swans believe that we must ensure protection of the long-term health of our brand integrity and maintain our differentiated identity in the market."

At first, we thought it must have been a briefing note from a seminar on the marketing of frozen peas, abandoned as incomprehensible, but somehow retrieved from the wastepaper basket and distributed.

We checked for tell-tale stains — hair gel, latte froth, fine white powder — but, no, it was forensically verifiable as what it said it was: from the football department, for the football media, which writes about football, footballers and football clubs.

It urged us to use the club's correct name when "referenced in all sections of the media", lest it lead to "brand dilution". Not Sydney, not Sydney Football Club, not Sydney FC, not SMFC, not The Sydney Club, not Sydney Australian Football Club, but Sydney Swans. "We believe this will avoid audience confusion," it read.

This was puzzling. The Swans say they are worried because other Sydney sports clubs use the name — wait for it — "Sydney". But the Roosters are easily told apart: they are the club that has scandalously failed to embroil itself in a sexual assault scandal for at least a year now. So is Sydney FC: it is the club that changes coaches annually and its underpants whenever it hears the name David Beckham.

The Swifts? Allowing that there might have been some mistaken identity when Adam Heuskes was still around, they're the ones in skirts. The Kings? They're the ones in liquidation.

The Swans have two other characteristics that evidently do not seem to have occurred to them as profoundly distinguishing. One is that they play Australian football, passably well. The other is that they are the only club Candice Falzon hasn't tried. Yet.

Evidently, these subtleties were enough to mark out the Swans in a Morgan poll two weeks ago that put their estimated support at 1.2 million, the most for any football club in the land. Still the Swans flapped their wings and honked on about "core brand identity" in a Large, Bold Font.

But, however hard it is to recognise the Swans as a football club, it is even harder to recognise them as a brand. We haven't seen them on special at Coles lately, nor in the seconds shops on Bridge Road, and not anywhere on eBay. Brett Kirk's blood might be worth bottling, but we'd still prefer Rosella.

And it should be remembered that anyone who wants to go anywhere near a Sydney player with a coat-hanger is answerable to Barry Hall.

The only time the word brand has been used in conjunction with Sydney recently was when Andrew Demetriou said something about its brand of football. He wasn't buying it.

It takes only a little knowledge of football — the average in Sydney — to see that the Swans have an unmistakeable trademark. It is that they play organised, patient, driven and mostly winning football, directed by the least flappable coach in the business.

They would be recognisably themselves even if they were called the Ducks, Ducklings, Cygnets, Cobs, Pens, Geese, Ganders or Putrefied, Scabrous-Winged, One-Legged Ugly Ducklings from Rooty Hill. Which is what Demetriou was trying to say.

Usefully, the Swans' memo provides some background. "Historically, the club was frequently referred to by our harbour city location — Sydney," it read. "As the first and currently only AFL club team in NSW, this has been an easy, short-hand way to distinguish our club from the 15 other AFL clubs." Not to mention, and the memo didn't, the colours. And the guernsey. And the song.

And the names: Nash, Cazaly, Skilton, Kelly, O'Loughlin. And the history: fitful, sometimes glorious, a little ill-starred, pioneering in 1982 when it changed cities, a history unique to the Swans and for most the most part cherished as such.

Here is some more history. The club has gone by many other names: South Melbourne, South, the Bloods, the Angels, the Blood-stained Angels, poor old South. As late as 2005, when this massively confused and conflicted entity at last won the premiership, co-captain Kirk leapt on to the podium and declared: "This one's for the Bloods." Boy, was that misguided referencing: potentially such a key moment in the quest to protect the long-term health of the brand integrity, so wantonly lost. We can only presume that Kirk will now be taken away for re-programming.

Here is some more history. The Swans identity derives not from Sydney, nor really from Melbourne, but Perth. In 1932, six players arrived from WA to play for South Melbourne, quickly dubbed the Foreign Legion, and the swan, the WA emblem, was adopted as a kind of tribute. The fact that the club played at Albert Park, dotted by swans, dovetailed neatly. This must be right: it is on Sydney's website.

But a brand name appropriated by Sydney from Perth via Melbourne is too differentiated for us, and plainly a threat to long-term health. The core risk of integrity dilution is too audience for our attribute conflict.

Henceforth, we will reference the club in all sections as the Key Differentiated Undiluted Attributes. As such, they could be only from Sydney.