Black Leopards Relegated Again as Namibian Duo Face Uncertain Futures

Relegation has finally caught up with Black Leopards – and with it, another brutal twist in the careers of Namibian pair Bethuel Muzeu and Loydt Kazapua.

A 2-1 win over Venda Football Club on Sunday briefly offered a hint of resistance, a reminder of what this club once represented in South African football. It pushed Leopards to 28 points with one game to spare. It also changed nothing.

They cannot reach the 32-point mark needed to survive, even if University of Pretoria stumble on the final day. The maths is unforgiving. The drop to the Safa ABC Motsepe League is confirmed, and Leopards go down alongside fellow Limpopo side Baroka.

Muzeu’s goals, Leopards’ spiral

For Muzeu, this is a painful rerun.

The Namibian striker, 26, has now been relegated twice with Leopards in the National First Division. The club went down in 2023, only to buy the NFD status of Cape Town All Stars and cling to their place in the Motsepe Foundation Championship. It felt like a reprieve. It turned into a stay of execution.

Through it all, Muzeu kept scoring. He sits on eight league goals this season, a respectable return in a struggling side. This is his fourth campaign at the club, following seasons in which he hit 12 goals in 2024 and 17 in 2025. The numbers tell the story of a forward who has done his part; the table tells a very different story about the team around him.

He started this campaign brightly, most of his goals coming before the turn of the year. As Leopards’ season unravelled, so did his scoring touch. The service dried up, the chances thinned, and with them the faint hope of survival.

Kazapua’s delayed debut and a season already lost

At the other end of the pitch, 37-year-old Namibian goalkeeper Loydt Kazapua arrived at the start of the season with experience and stability in mind. He joined on a free transfer after leaving Sekhukhune United in the Premiership, signing a two-year deal that suggested Leopards were planning a serious push to re-establish themselves.

Then the transfer ban hit.

Leopards were barred from registering new players, including Kazapua. They did not even have a recognised goalkeeper available. In their opening fixture, they lined up with 10 men. For the first three matches of the campaign, captain and defender Thendo Mukumela pulled on the gloves and stood in goal.

Those weeks damaged more than their points tally. By the time the ban was lifted and Kazapua could finally be registered, Leopards were already buried deep in the relegation zone. He eventually established himself as first-choice, got regular game time, and brought some order to the back line. The results barely moved.

The damage had been done before he could even step onto the pitch.

Chaos on the touchline

Instability off the field only sharpened the slide.

The club reshuffled its technical team three times in one season. Joel Masutha started the campaign but left in November. Mabuti Khenyeza came in next, lasted 10 matches, and also departed. Each change brought a new voice, a new approach, and yet the same sinking feeling.

Leopards never found a sustained rhythm. They lurched from crisis to crisis, from transfer bans to touchline changes, and the table reflected that chaos.

Namibians elsewhere, futures in the balance

While Muzeu and Kazapua prepare for life in the third tier, other Namibians in the same division are pushing in the opposite direction.

At Highbury FC, Ndisiro Kamaijanda and Ngero Katua are part of a side sitting sixth, safely in the top half. Prins Tjiueza’s Cape Town City FC are third on the log, level on points with the team in fourth as they chase a play-off place. Where Leopards have slipped, others are climbing.

Leopards still have one fixture left: a home meeting with eighth-placed Lerumo Lions on Sunday, 17 May at 15h00. The result will not change their fate, but it will say something about their response.

For Muzeu, for Kazapua, for a club that once punched above its weight in the South African game, that final whistle will not just close a season. It will pose a harder question: how many of them will still be around when the fight to come back begins?