Lepasa celebrates a goal against Cape Town City FC. Image from Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
Orlando Pirates have TWO big decisions to make
Seeing key players leave is never easy, but for Orlando Pirates the potential financial upside is a massive game-changer.
Lepasa celebrates a goal against Cape Town City FC. Image from Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
A fifth of a billion Rands is what’s potentially at stake for Orlando Pirates but there’s a catch.
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SELLING ORLANDO PIRATES STARS CAN GENERATE HUGE MONEY
We all want to see South African stars shine abroad and two Buccaneers might be on the verge of their own European breakthroughs. Selling both Monnapule Saleng and Relebohile Mofokeng in the same window would sting, but the financial upside is potentially huge. Just imagine how many players the Buccaneers could sign with those funds and the improvements they could also make to their academy infrastructure.
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MOFOKENG HAS A MASSIVE FUTURE
Relebohile Mofokeng is on trial at Wolves in the Premier League. Pirates could attempt to get a big fee out of the Birmingham-based side, should they decide to make a permanent move for the 18-year-old who is eligible to sign professional terms with an English side. If they do, that would significantly increase Pirates’ options in the transfer market.
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SALENG WILL BE DIFFICULT TO REPLACE
Monnapule Saleng’s 15 goals and 11 assists from 30 appearances last term was a ludicrous output for a winger, and it’s unlikely to be matched in the foreseeable future, but Jose Riveiro’s side needs to look at the bigger picture here. It seems inevitable that Saleng will make a move to Europe at some stage in his career. Pirates could do worse than facilitating that sooner rather than later, to maximize the revenue they recoup for him. His value is as high as it’s ever going to be, and those funds could be reinvested in a few top-class local players. A €3m (R60 million) offer would be almost impossible to refuse, and even for a club like Odense in Denmark, that’s relative pocket change. Mofokeng could fetch even more than that, given his massive ceiling and potential as well as the significant spending power of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The Buccaneers’ top brass must make smart decisions. Namely, when to sell their prized assets and how to extract the most value out of them.
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