Leopards Fight Back: Which Games Are Affected?

With Black Leopards fighting to stay alive in the Motsepe Foundation Championship, Soccer Laduma takes a look at what happened during the period, including having one of their matches postponed.

Lidoda Duvha were relageted over the weekend despite beating rivals Venda FC in their pentulimate match of the campaign, but they have approached the SAFA arbitration to have their four opening matches of the season replayed.

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Leopards came into the season with a transfer ban relating to the All Stars status they bought three years, which had a big impact on their squad in the first four matches of the campaign. As a result, the PSL withdrew the registration cards of their new signings, leaving them to play with a depleted squad.

Lidoda Duvha believe the PSL acted prematurely on the ban, before FIFA had formally ruled on a transfer ban as All Stars’ sporting successor.

They started the first game of the season against Casric Stars with 10 players and had defender Thendo Mukumela playing as a goalkeeper because they were unable to register their new goalkeepers, one of them being former Chippa United and Sekhukhune United shot-stopper Lloydt Kazapua. They went on to play University of Pretoria, Lerumo Lions and Leicesterford City, but the PSL did grant them time to sort out the issues of their transfer ban when they postponed the league match against Upington City on 13 September, 2025.

In a statement, at the time, Leopards said: "The Premier Soccer League has given Black Leopards FC a lifeline by postponing their match against Upington City which was scheduled for Saturday 13th September at the Thohoyandou Stadium with a 15h00 kick off.

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"We are under a FIFA transfer Ban, that was imposed on Cape Town All stars for failing to do an assessment on the Fifa Clearing house portal. Now since we purchased the Cape Town all Stars status some few years ago, we are now facing the consequences.

Leopards' match against Tuks was played under protest because they did not have five under-23 players in the team on the day, due to the ban. Soccer Laduma understands that there was no ruling of the matter.