Pirates say goodbye and reveal Mofokeng ‘secret’
· Citizen
Orlando Pirates issued a heartfelt goodbye to Relebohile Mofokeng on Thursday.
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Mofokeng’s Pirates secret
And the Buccaneers revealed that the 21 year-old whizz-kid could have left last season, but chose to stay and help Pirates win their first Betway Premiership title in 14 years.
Mofokeng was unveiled by Belgian top flight club Royal Union St Gilloise on earlier on Thursday. He has joined from Pirates for a reported fee of around US$ 3 million (about R58.5 million).
“There is the thing we must not forget. The thing that reveals, more than any goal or assist, exactly who this young man is and today Orlandopiratesfc.com can reveal the secret,” wrote Pirates on their official website.
‘He made a promise, quietly, the way honest people do’
“Relebohile could have left last year. The interest was there. The door was open. But what did he do? He chose to stay – not for money, not for comfort, but because he wanted to win the league for this club and for its supporters.
In his own words: “Chairman, I am not worried about overseas now. I want to give it my all this season and try win this league for the club. This is my only focus right now. If overseas happens after that, then good but for now, let me do all I can to make the supporters happy.”
“He made a promise, quietly, the way honest people do. And he kept it.”
Pirates revealed earlier this week that they had agreed a deal with Union St Gilloise for Mofokeng. They stressed that negotiations had concluded before Mofokeng left for the USA, Canada and Mexico with Bafana Bafana to play in the 2026 Fifa World Cup finals.
Mofokeng did not depart for Johannesburg with Bafana this week as he went off to Belgium to complete the move to Union.
The full tribute
Pirates’ full tribute to Mofokeng can be read below:
There are players you watch. And then there are players you feel. From the very first time Relebohile Mofokeng stepped onto a training pitch at Rand Stadium, nobody needed to explain which category he belonged to.
The senior players already knew. You could see it in the way they paused. The way they turned to each other with that look – the one that needs no words and simply watched. A teenager, fresh from being scouted from the Pirates Cup.
That is where this story begins. Not in a final. Not in a sold-out Orlando Amstel Arena full of noise. It begins in a quiet training session in 2022, where a boy showed a group of experienced footballers something they had not seen in a very long time. Something that reminded them why they fell in love with this game in the first place.
He made his senior debut on the 3rd May, 2023. He was still a teenager. He looked calm. He played like a man who had rehearsed this moment in his sleep for years – because, in truth, he had. Within weeks, he scored his first goal. Within months, he was indispensable. Within a season, he was one of the most important players at the club. The trajectory was not gradual. It was vertical.
But ask any Orlando Pirates supporter where the moment was, that singular, crystallising, forever moment and they will not hesitate.
He came off the bench. The game was there to be won or lost. The weight of a Cup Final of a developing rivalry, pressing down on every pair of shoulders in that stadium. And this young man, still smiling, as he always was – received the ball, and did what only a certain kind of footballer can do in that moment.
‘What made him extraordinary was not just the skill.’
He scored. Orlando Pirates were Nedbank Cup champions. And in one single, suspended heartbeat, Relebohile Mofokeng stopped being a prospect and became a legend.
He did it again the following season in the MTN8 Final. Off the bench. Again. A goal. An assist. The difference. As though he had written the script himself and simply kept to it.
What made him extraordinary was not just the skill. It was the intelligence and maturity behind it. He was not a player who dribbled to entertain. He was a player who dribbled to destroy. Every touch had intent. Every movement had purpose. And through all of it, all the goals, all the finals, all the adulation – the young man never changed. Not once. He was still the boy at the front of the group when the team sang. Still smiling like someone who could not believe his luck, even as the rest of us could not believe ours.
That is what made the Buccaneers faithful love him the way they did. Not just as a footballer. As a son. As the kid from the neighbourhood who made it and never forgot where he came from. Rival fans respected him. Rival players acknowledged him. There is a particular kind of player who earns that – who is so purely, transparently good in every sense of the word that even those who are supposed to oppose him cannot help but bow their heads. Relebohile Mofokeng was that player!
‘The thing we must not forget’
And then there is the thing we must not forget. The thing that reveals, more than any goal or assist, exactly who this young man is and today Orlandopiratesfc.com can reveal the secret.
Relebohile could have left last year. The interest was there. The door was open. But what did he do? He chose to stay – not for money, not for comfort, but because he wanted to win the league for this club and for its supporters.
In his own words: “Chairman, I am not worried about overseas now. I want to give it my all this season and try win this league for the club. This is my only focus right now. If overseas happens after that, then good but for now, let me do all I can to make the supporters happy.”
He made a promise, quietly, the way honest people do. And he kept it.
Europe will take a little while to catch up. A few matches, maybe less. And then the world will know what Mzansi has known since 2022, that Relebohile Mofokeng is something that comes along once in a generation, if you are lucky. If you are very lucky.
We wish Relebohile nothing but the best in this new chapter of his career but more importantly, thank him for everything.
Once.Always