Black Leopards are set to miss out on the 2026/27 Nedbank Cup after refusing to participate in the ABC Motsepe League while their legal battle against the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and the South African Football Association (SAFA) remains unresolved.
The Thohoyandou-based club, led by chairman David Thidiela, has maintained that it should not have been relegated to South Africa’s third tier following what it regards as an incorrect handling of its player-registration dispute at the beginning of the 2025/26 Motsepe Foundation Championship season.
The matter has now been taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), with Leopards challenging decisions involving the PSL and SAFA.
Leopards stay out of ABC Motsepe League
Leopards were relegated from the Motsepe Foundation Championship after finishing 15th in the 2025/26 campaign. But instead of taking their place in the Limpopo ABC Motsepe League, the club asked SAFA to exclude them from the competition while the CAS matter is being dealt with.
Thidiela has been adamant that Leopards’ relegation should not stand.
Speaking to the media, he said:
“I was demoted two years ago unlawfully. The question today is: who banned Leopards and for what? I’m not relegated, and I’m not going to play in the ABC Motsepe League.”
According to Thidiela, the dispute goes back to the beginning of last season when the PSL withheld Leopards’ player-registration cards because of an alleged FIFA transfer ban.
The club argues that the registration issue affected its first four matches of the campaign. Leopards say they were forced to play the opening fixture with only 10 players and subsequently played three other matches without the required number of Under-23 players. Two of those matches were played under protest.
Thidiela maintains that FIFA subsequently informed Leopards that the club was not under a transfer ban.
“The ban was over after we played four games,” Thidiela said, explaining that the PSL returned the registration cards on the same day the club received FIFA’s communication on September 30.
The decision to stay out of the ABC Motsepe League has a direct consequence for Leopards’ participation in the Nedbank Cup.
SAFA’s 2026/27 competition schedule provides for ABC Motsepe League clubs to participate in the provincial route to the Nedbank Cup, with provincial winners required to be submitted by 30 October 2026.
In Limpopo, the road to the Nedbank Cup has already started. The preliminary-round matches involving ABC Motsepe League clubs began on Saturday, 12 September 2026, with another round scheduled for 19 September.
Because Leopards have elected not to participate in the ABC Motsepe League, they are not taking part in this provincial Nedbank Cup route.
This means that, unless their legal position changes before the relevant competition deadlines, Lidoda Duvha will not feature in the 2026/27 Nedbank Cup.
The PSL has confirmed that the 2026/27 Nedbank Cup itself is scheduled to begin on 27 January 2027, with the final set for 1 May 2027.
Thidiela says the club’s decision is not intended to interfere with the ABC Motsepe League programme or the teams already preparing for the new season.
“I am the one who requested SAFA to inform them [ABC Motsepe League teams] that we will not be participating until our issue is resolved,” he said.
“We serve football, and we don’t want to disrupt, even though we have to fight for our rights. Once everything is clear [from CAS], then we will find a way forward. As long as we do not disrupt the continuity of football.”
The club’s legal challenge follows an earlier SAFA arbitration process in which its application to replay four matches was dismissed. Leopards subsequently approached the Johannesburg High Court, but the urgent application was struck off the roll, with the CAS proceedings also underway.
Thidiela has said there is no fixed date for the CAS hearing yet, as the tribunal is still gathering information from both Leopards and the PSL.
For now, therefore, Leopards’ position remains unchanged: they will not play in the ABC Motsepe League, and their absence from that competition also removes them from the provincial pathway into this season’s Nedbank Cup.
