PSL’s Free State Stars founding father Mike Mokoena dies
ALEX – Cancer has the better of one of the founding fathers of the Premier Soccer League, Mike Mokoena.
Premier Soccer League and Orlando Pirates chairperson Dr Irvin ‘Iron Duke’ Khoza has mourned the death of one of the founding fathers of the National Soccer League which is the holding company of professional football in the country.
Mike Mokoena, chairman of Free State Stars Football Club and also a longstanding member of the Executive Committee, died in the early hours of 17 June after a long battle with cancer.”Our prayers are with the Mokoena family, especially its matriarch, Ausi Joyce Mokoena, who has been a pillar of strength that propped Bra Mike up over the years,” Khoza said from the Parktown offices of the league.
He described Mokoena as a self-made man who took the fruits of his toil, which he could have used for his personal benefit and that of his family, and invested it selflessly in football. The Free State Stars payroll that he created and maintained, sometimes under very trying circumstances, was a source of viable livelihoods for many. Khoza said Bra Mike, as the Stars strongman was better known in football circles, was an epitome of practicality.
“People do not come more practical that Mr Mokoena lived,” he added. He founded Stars in 1977 in the small village of Makwane and named it Makwane Computer Stars and then changed it to Qwa Qwa Stars and shined a spotlight on the little known town of Qwa Qwa in the southern Free State. This literally put it on the map along with the nearby town of Bethlehem.
Almost 10 years later, the club gained promotion to the Premier Soccer League but at the time of his death, the team, which had had a colourful existence and exploits in the professional league, had been relegated to the now GladAfrica Championship in the 2018/19 season. “The economic activity generated by Free State Stars in that part of our country is a powerful legacy of a passionate man that always maintained that ‘where there is a will, there is a way’.
“Through his toil, Mike Mokoena left this world a better place than he found it. May his soul repose peacefully.”
