Young Warriors captain and Gunners leftback Qadr Amin might join South African Premiership football giants Orlando Pirates next month, NewsDay Sport can reveal.
Team owner Cuthbert Chitima is already in South Africa to tie up the deal and the player is expected to make an appearance in next month’s Vodacom Challenge which will feature rivals Kaizer Chiefs and English Premiership club Tottenham Hotspur.
A source at the club last night said: “He (Amin) will sign next week after passing his trials last month and the boss (Chitima) is already in South Africa.”
Amin is on the verge of leading the Young Warriors to the All Africa Games finals in Mozambique in September. The Young Warriors play South Africa in the final qualifier later this month.
Meanwhile, Caps United and Warriors striker Simba Sithole concluded a five-year mega bucs deal with cash-rich South African Premiership outfit Mamelodi Sundowns.
Sithole, who has scored 10 goals in 10 matches for Caps United, penned the deal in Tshwane, South Africa, on Monday night, which sees him become one of the five Zimbabweans at the club.
The deal was signed by the player with Caps United operations director Farai Jere leading his team’s delegation.
Caps United chief executive officer Maxwell Mironga confirmed the deal yesterday, but refused to reveal the financial part of the deal.
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“He (Sithole) signed a five-year contract and will join them in the next two weeks. Sundowns have said if he does not make an impression either in the starting 11 or 18, he will be loaned to other clubs in the Absa Premiership because he needs to get game time, but we know he will fit in the team,” he said.
He added: “We would have wanted to keep the player and built a strong squad to challenge for the championship. It was a hard decision on our part, but sometimes you realise that football has become business and you need to make some decisions. So at the end of the day, we were left with no choice but to let the boy chase his dream.”
On a replacement: “We will look for one or two players in the market. His absence is definitely going to affect us as he had come in as a replacement for Nyasha (Mushekwi), so we need to beef up our strikeforce.”
Sithole joins fellow Zimbabweans-skipper Esrom Nyandoro, defender Method Mwanjali, striker Mushekwi and midfielder Lionel Mtizwa. Sithole is the fourth player to arrive at Sundowns from Caps United in a year following the capture of Mwanjali, Mtizwa and Mushekwi.
Sithole has scored five goals in four games for the Zimbabwe Under-23 team, in the 2011 Maputo All-Africa Games qualifiers.
The 20-year-old had been followed closely since the beginning of the season by Sundowns chief scout and owner Patrice Motsepe’s most trusted lieutenant Trott Moloto, who watched him in action against Highlanders at Barbourfields late last month.
Sithole, who grew up in grinding poverty as the eldest child of an orphaned family in rural Masvingo, is widely tipped to eventually partner Kaizer Chiefs hotshot Knowledge Musona in Zimbabwe colours.
The sure-footed striker was virtually an unknown schoolboy when he joined Shooting Stars at the beginning of last season, under Moses Chunga.
By the end of the year though, he had established himself in the consciousness of local football followers, earning a call-up to both the Under-20 and Under-23 sides.
He then moved to Caps United when Chunga also made a move to the Green Machine in the last half of the season.
Sithole was set to return home last night, but part of the agreement with Sundowns is that the striker will be available when Sundowns begin their pre-season training next month.
Sundowns, the former home of ex-Warriors skipper Peter Ndlovu who won two championships there, is owned by billionaire gold magnate Motsepe whose fortune, as of 2011, is estimated at $3,3 billion.
In 2008 he was 503rd richest person in the world, by the Forbes World Billionaires List. Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals company’s name changed to ARMgold, on merging with Harmony Gold Mining Ltd, in 2002 when is it was listed on the JSE Security Exchange.
Motsepe is also the founder of African Rainbow Minerals Platinum (Proprietary) Limited and ARM Consortium Limited which later equally split ownership with Anglo American Platinum Corp Ltd.
From 2005, Motsepe was chairman of Teal Exploration and Mining Incorporated.
Motsepe is chairman of Ubuntu-Botho Investments, non-executive chairman of Harmony Gold Mining Co Ltd and deputy chairman of Sanlam Ltd. Motsepe is currently president of South Africa’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Ubuntu-Botho are the sponsors of Sundowns.
According to the 2011 Forbes Billionaire List, Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote with a net worth of $13,8 billion is the richest black person in the world.
The other black billionaires on the 2011 list are Motsepe with $3,3 billion, American Oprah Winfrey at $2,7 billion and Nigeria’s Mike Adenuga with $2 billion.
