Emille Witbooi: Cape Town boss confirms Orlando Pirates talks

Cape Town City FC chairman John Comitis has revealed that there were indeed talks with Orlando Pirates about the possibility of signing wonderkid Emille Witbooi.

Witbooi became the subject of interest at Pirates in the transfer window following the departure of Relebohile Mofokeng to Belgian club Royale Union Saint-Gilloise.

Pirates were looking for an attacking midfielder and identified the 18-year-old as the perfect replacement for Mofokeng.

The Buccaneers approached Cape Town who are reported to have asked €1 million (R18.7 million) which the PSL champions were not ready to pay.

Comitis on Pirates’ interest in Witbooi

Comitis has now opened up about the behind-the-scenes intrigues that saw one of South Africa’s highly-rated youngsters fail to make the big move to the Soweto giants.

“We decided to keep Emile Witbooi to assist us this season, there is still a lot of interest, we may still do something before the end of the season,” Comitis told KickOff.

“We saw a lot of media frenzy in the kid, we were very happy to listen to offers, we did speak to Orlando Pirates, but nothing materialised.”

Comitis says once it became clear that Pirates and the other suitors could not meet their valuation for Witbooi, they opted to keep the player as they fight to return to the PSL although he is not ruling out a move in the coming months.

Why Cape Town retained wonderkid

“At this stage we are very focused to keep him here so that he can assist with the promotion battle,” he added. “Everybody knows the value of the player, and we will get the value, we are not concerned about that.”

“The team is settled now, there is nothing happening, we just focusing on matches game by game now. We will see how it goes, one game at a time,” Comitis further said.

Witbooi is believed to have been keen on the move to Pirates as he saw it the perfect platform for him to move abroad but the interest has not waned even after the transfer failed to materialise.