Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder Teboho Mokoena extending his contract at the club until 2029 amidst overseas interest has raised eyebrows and former club midfielder Brent Carelse has had his say on the matter.
After winning the 2022/23 PSL Footballer of the Season, interest in Mokoena began to take an upward curve ahead of the 2023/24 campaign.
And following another impressive performances for Bafana Bafana in the January Africa Cup of Nations, the former SuperSport United midfielder was strongly linked with clubs such as Bournemouth in the Premier League, French giants Monaco and North African sides such as Al Ahly.
As the 27-year-old's contract was set to expire, he was again during the off-season linked with Qatar All Stars club Al Wakrah.
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However, Sundowns eventually announced that they agreed on a five-year contract extension with Mokoena, which would keep him at the club until 2029.
Kickoff spoke to Carelse, on what he made of the Bafana midfielder extending his stay at The Brazilians for five more years in spite of reported interest from overseas clubs.
"I think myself as a former player I would have loved to see him go to one of those leagues [Europe or Middle East] but we don't know what happened behind the scenes you know and a lot of the times the clubs overseas want to buy our players for next to nothing," Carelse told Kickoff.
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"Because we're in South Africa or whatever. So maybe Sundowns decided, 'No, the offer is not good enough' or whatever the case is but there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that we don't, as a public, don't get to hear about.
"But at the end of the day, it is always the player's decision and I think he has made his decision, he wants to stay at Sundowns, he's happy at Sundowns. He's doing well at the club. I'm happy he's going to stay, [even though] I would have loved to see him play in the top leagues," Carelse added.