Baroka FC chairman Khurishi Mphahlele has ruled out buying the club’s way back into professional football, telling Vodacom Soccer that the Bakgaga rebuild will be done from inside the ABC Motsepe League — no franchise purchase, no shortcut.
A line in the sand from the chairman
The temptation, after relegation to the third tier, is always the same: find a club whose Motsepe Foundation Championship status can be acquired and rebrand it. Mphahlele was direct in his rejection of the option. Baroka FC will not be bought back into professional football, he told Vodacom Soccer; the club will earn its way back through the league pyramid in the way every other amateur side does. The chairman’s tone made clear that the principle was not negotiable and that the path was the path.
The case for a slower rebuild
Buying a franchise solves the immediate problem and creates a half-dozen new ones — a fan base that did not grow up with the badge, a squad assembled from scratch, an identity papered over rather than restored. Mphahlele’s view is that Baroka FC’s value lies in continuity, and that the ABC Motsepe League years are part of the story rather than a detour around it. The chairman’s three-year target for a return to professional football is ambitious without being reckless; the ABC Motsepe and the Motsepe Foundation Championship together can be cleared in two seasons by a club that gets the structure right.
What the supporters were told
The chairman’s message has been consistent across multiple interviews since relegation was confirmed: the club is not for sale, the badge is not for swapping, the project does not stop. Supporters who have followed Bakgaga from the days of professional promotion through the long years in the top flight and into this season’s relegation are now being asked to walk one more road — the one back. Mphahlele has named the timeline. The community has been told what the plan is. The work begins immediately.
Final word
No franchise purchase, no shortcut, no compromise on identity. Baroka FC’s road back to professional football runs through the ABC Motsepe League the hard way — and the chairman would not have it any other way.
