South Africa reached a World Cup knockout round for the first time. One month later, exactly one member of the 26-man squad has completed a transfer abroad — and the squad's most-praised player had already moved six months before the tournament. Completed transfers counted, reported fees attributed, and no modelled valuations anywhere on the page.
By Noma Dora, Senior Regulatory & Sports Journalist · Published · Last updated
More than four years covering sport for the regional South African press.
This page deliberately contains no market valuations. The reason is set out at the bottom, and it is the most useful thing on it.
South Africa reached a World Cup knockout round for the first time. One month later, exactly one member of the 26-man squad has completed a transfer abroad.
That is not a criticism of the players or the tournament. It is what the "shop window" argument looks like when you count outcomes instead of speculation — and the counting window is still open, which is why this page is dated and will be re-run.
Nineteen of the 26 World Cup players were also in the squad for the Africa Cup of Nations six months earlier, which gives a clean before-and-after on club registration.
| Movement | Players |
|---|---|
| Changed club between AFCON (Dec 2025) and the World Cup (Jun 2026) | 2 |
| Completed a move in the post-World Cup window, to 1 August 2026 | 2 |
| — of those, a move abroad | 1 |
| Overseas-based at the World Cup | 7 of 26 |
The four moves in full:
| Player | Age at WC | From | To | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mbekezeli Mbokazi | 20 | Orlando Pirates | Chicago Fire (USA) | December 2025 — before the World Cup |
| Khulumani Ndamane | 22 | TS Galaxy | Mamelodi Sundowns | between AFCON and the World Cup |
| Relebohile Mofokeng | 21 | Orlando Pirates | Royale Union Saint-Gilloise (Belgium) | July 2026 — after the World Cup |
| Ricardo Goss | 32 | Siwelele | Mamelodi Sundowns | July 2026 — after, and domestic |
The two moves abroad bracket the tournament rather than following it. Mbokazi's transfer to Chicago Fire was completed in December 2025, before a ball was kicked in Mexico. Mofokeng's four-year deal with Union Saint-Gilloise is the only completed overseas transfer to follow the run.
Relebohile Mofokeng, 21, left Orlando Pirates for Royale Union Saint-Gilloise on a four-year contract in July 2026. He was not a headline performer in Mexico and the United States — a substitute appearance against Czechia, then starts against Korea Republic and Canada — but he was trusted, and he moved.
News24 described him as "first through the door" on 2 July, framing an expected wave. As at 1 August, he is still the only one through it.
Mbekezeli Mbokazi is the more instructive case, and he cuts against the shop-window story rather than for it.
Chicago Fire signed him from Orlando Pirates in December 2025, on a contract running through 2029 with a club option for 2029/30 — the club's own announcement is the source for those terms. The reported fee was around $3 million, per ESPN, with News24 putting it at "more than $3 million". By the time the World Cup began, the transfer was seven months old and he had started twelve MLS regular-season matches.
His tournament then did move his standing. He started every South Africa match, was named in Major League Soccer's All-Star First XI, and ESPN reported interest from Nottingham Forest and clubs in Belgium and Italy — while also reporting, in the same piece, that no serious offers had been tabled and that Chicago were not sitting on any bid worth a conversation.
So the World Cup's measurable effect on the squad's most-praised player is, so far, interest without offers. That is a real outcome and worth recording precisely, because it is the outcome the speculation coverage does not report.
The obvious way to write this page would be to put each player's modelled market value before the tournament next to the value after it, and publish the percentage change. We are not doing that, for two reasons.
It would not be our measurement. Market values are estimates produced by commercial databases using undisclosed methods. They are not prices anyone paid. A page that reported "player X rose 40%" would be reporting a third party's opinion changing, and dressing it as a fact about the transfer market. Every other number on this site is something we computed or something a named source disclosed, and a modelled valuation is neither.
And the terms of those databases restrict systematic reuse. Extracting a before-and-after series for 26 players is precisely the systematic extraction those terms exist to prevent. We are not willing to build a research asset on a licence breach.
What we can publish is what actually changed hands: who moved, to whom, when, on what contract length, and what fee was reported by whom. Of the four moves above, exactly one has a fee in the public record at all — Mbokazi's, at a figure two outlets describe as "around" or "more than" $3 million, which is reporting rather than disclosure. Not one of the four was announced with a confirmed fee by either club.
That is the honest state of the evidence, and it is the same finding as our transfer window page, where 211 recorded movements produced not a single stated fee.
The window does not close until the end of August 2026, and European windows run to the start of September. A page written on 1 August is measuring one month of a three-month market.
Re-run date: early September 2026, when the window closes and the count is final. If a wave of moves follows, this page will say so; the point of dating it is that the claim can be checked either way.
How many Bafana Bafana players moved abroad after the 2026 World Cup? One, as at 1 August 2026: Relebohile Mofokeng, from Orlando Pirates to Royale Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium, on a four-year contract. The transfer window remains open until the end of August, so this figure is a snapshot.
Did Mbekezeli Mbokazi move because of the World Cup? No. Chicago Fire signed him from Orlando Pirates in December 2025, six months before the tournament, on a contract to 2029 with a club option for 2029/30. The World Cup raised his profile — he made MLS's All-Star First XI and drew reported interest from Nottingham Forest and clubs in Belgium and Italy — but ESPN reported no serious offers had been tabled.
What was Mbokazi's transfer fee? Neither club disclosed one. ESPN reported the Fire paid "around $3 million" and News24 "more than $3 million". Both are reports rather than confirmed figures, and this page treats them as such.
How much did South African players' market values rise after the World Cup? We do not publish market values. They are estimates produced by commercial databases from undisclosed methods, not prices anyone paid, and their terms restrict the systematic reuse a before-and-after table would require. This page counts completed transfers instead.
How many of the World Cup squad were already playing abroad? Seven of 26. The full breakdown, and thirty years of the same measure, is on our overseas-based players page.
When will these figures be updated? Early September 2026, once the South African and European transfer windows have closed.
Period covered: From the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations squad announcement (December 2025) to 1 August 2026 — one month after South Africa's World Cup elimination, with the South African transfer window still open until the end of August.
Every figure on this page is in the files below, so you can check the arithmetic yourself. Released under CC BY 4.0 — free to reuse, including commercially, with attribution.
Journalists and researchers are welcome to use this data. Please credit Bet AFR and link to this page — that link is the only thing we ask for in return.
Bet AFR, "What the 2026 World Cup was worth to Bafana players — transfers, not valuations", last updated 1 August 2026. https://betafr.co.za/statistics/bafana-market-value-shift
Licensed CC BY 4.0 (licence terms). Spotted an error, or have a better source? Tell us — corrections are published with the date they were made.
The same squad counted by club location over thirty years is on Bafana overseas-based players, and by age on the squad age profile. The undisclosed-fee problem this page runs into is the same one measured across the whole division on our 2026/27 transfer window page. For what these players were worth to their clubs in release money, see FIFA Club Benefits.