Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gift Mkhize will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Platinum Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platinum Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
$6.8M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kabelo Mahlasela provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luther Manyama provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
He is going to Asante Kotoko, the club has $6.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Platinum Stars close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The deal that would have taken Bongani Hlatshwayo to Moreirense has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Platinum Stars with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Somila Ntsundwana was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Platinum Stars asked and Crvena Zvezda said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Platinum Stars people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Rapid Wien keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platinum Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kabelo Mahlasela was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Ajax Cape Town had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Chippa United kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Platinum Stars will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The name of Andile Zwane has come up in conversations Platinum Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Orlando Pirates wanted more than $110.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The offer from Free State Stars for Siyabonga Kekana was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Somila Ntsundwana has just signed for Platinum Stars, and for once the answer mattered.
Somila Ntsundwana and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Platinum Stars offered $130.0K; Golden Arrows said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Add another name to the list: Free State Stars have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Teboho Modiba. The answer from Platinum Stars has not changed — yet.