Black Leopards Relegated Again as Namibian Duo Faces NFD Drop
Black Leopards’ long, chaotic fight against gravity is over. With one game still to play, the Limpopo club and its two Namibian internationals, striker Bethuel Muzeu and goalkeeper Loydt Kazapua, have been relegated from the National First Division, the Motsepe Foundation Championship in all but name.
The confirmation came with a sting. Leopards beat Venda Football Club 2-1 on Sunday, a result that briefly revived hope in Thohoyandou. It pushed them up to 28 points with one match left. It was not enough. The mathematics refused to budge: they cannot reach the 32-point mark required to stay up, even if University of Pretoria slip in their final fixture.
Second relegation, same club
The Namibian forward has now gone down twice with the same side in the same division. Black Leopards were relegated from the NFD in 2023, only to buy the league status of Cape Town All Stars and cling to their second-tier place.
They reset. They regrouped. They tried again.
Muzeu stayed loyal through it all. At 26, he has become one of the few constants in a club that has lurched from crisis to crisis. This is his fourth season in Leopards colours, and he has again carried a sizeable share of the attacking burden, sitting on eight league goals this campaign despite the team’s struggles.
Earlier years underline his value. He hit 12 goals in 2024 and 17 in 2025, numbers that would usually anchor a team in mid-table comfort. Around him, though, the foundations kept crumbling.
Goalkeeper in the stands, captain in goal
The story of this relegation really began before a ball was kicked.
Leopards walked into the season hamstrung by a transfer ban. They could not register enough players. They could not even register a goalkeeper. In their opening match they had only 10 men available, and in the first three games, captain and defender Thendo Mukumela had to pull on the gloves and stand between the posts.
Kazapua was already in the building by then. The 37-year-old, a seasoned Namibian international, had joined on a free transfer at the start of the season after leaving Sekhukhune United in the Premiership. He signed a two-year deal expecting a fresh challenge, not a seat in the stands while his new club scrambled to fill a team sheet.
By the time the transfer ban was finally lifted and Kazapua could be registered, Leopards were already sunk deep into the relegation zone. The damage from those early weeks never really washed away.
Coaches in and out, results stay the same
Instability off the pitch matched the turmoil on it. The technical team changed three times during the campaign.
Joel Masutha started the season in the dugout but departed in November. Mabuti Khenyeza stepped in and lasted only 10 matches before the club moved again. Each reshuffle promised a reset. None delivered the sustained run of results Leopards needed.
Once he was eligible, Kazapua quickly nailed down the No 1 shirt and enjoyed regular game time. He brought experience, organisation and a calm presence behind a defence that had been patched together on the fly. The scoreboard, however, remained unforgiving. Tight games slipped away, points leaked, and the table never truly loosened its grip on them.
Muzeu’s season mirrored the team’s arc. He started brightly, scoring most of his goals in the first half of the campaign. As the season wore on and pressure mounted, the supply line thinned, chances dried up, and so did his scoring touch.
Limpopo pain, Namibian pride
Leopards will not go down alone. They join fellow Limpopo side Baroka in dropping to the Safa ABC Motsepe League, a stark fall for two clubs that have spent recent years flirting with the top flight.
For Namibia, the picture is more mixed. While Muzeu and Kazapua prepare for life in the third tier, other countrymen continue to make steady strides in the same division.
Highbury FC, sitting sixth, have Ndisiro Kamaijanda and Ngero Katua in their ranks, part of a campaign that still carries promise. Prins Tjiueza’s Cape Town City FC are third on the log, level on points with the side in fourth as they chase a coveted play-off place. Where Leopards’ season has closed in on them, these Namibian-linked sides are still looking up.
One last outing
All that remains for Black Leopards now is a final outing before the drop becomes real in the fixture list as well as the table.
They face eighth-placed Lerumo Lions on Sunday, 17 May at 15h00. No permutations, no escape routes, no calculators this time.
Just a last chance for Muzeu, Kazapua and their teammates to walk off the NFD stage on their own terms before the hard questions begin about how – and where – this club rebuilds from here.
