Pirates Sent Emotional Farewell About Mofokeng
Orlando Pirates have shared an emotional farewell message to Relebohile Mofokeng following his blockbuster move to Belgian Jupiler Pro League outfit Royale Union Saint-Gilloise (USG).
USG announced the signing of the South African international sensation on a four-year contract on Thursday, where Mofokeng will wear the number 38 jersey.
While the clubs finalized the deal at the end of last season, Pirates deliberately kept the transfer under wraps to keep Mofokeng’s focus entirely on Bafana Bafana’s 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign.
Consequently, Mofokeng was not part of the national squad that touched down in South Africa from the USA on Thursday morning. Instead, he boarded a direct flight to Belgium to complete his medical and finalize personal terms.
Mofokeng’s departure marks the end of a meteoric rise at Mayfair since head coach José Riveiro promoted him to the first team during the 2022/23 campaign.
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.
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!
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.
The Pirates academy graduate departs on the heels of a sensational individual season where he propelled the Buccaneers to a historic domestic treble—including their first league championship in 14 years.
During his breathtaking final campaign in South Africa, the dynamic star registered 10 goals and eight assists in 27 appearances, firmly establishing himself as the odds-on favorite to scoop the PSL Footballer of the Season award.
Overall, the prodigy leaves Mayfair having racked up 125 senior appearances for Pirates, netting 29 times and registering 31 assists.
