The twenty two year old Tshabalala comes highly recommended and has been tipped as one of the key players in the future success of the South African national team. After lengthy negotiations between his former club Free State Stars and The Amakhosi Tshabalala signed on the dotted line for Chiefs late on Wednesday as he officially joined The Amakhosi.

Siphiwe who was part of the Bafana Bafana squad that travelled to the 2006 Africa Cup of nations in Egypt, has joined Chiefs on a 30 month deal that will see him stay with Chiefs until the conclusion of the 2008 – 2009 season with a an option to renew his current contract thereafter.

For Tshabalala signing for Chiefs has seen him go full circle in his career as he was once part of the Kaizer Chiefs youth system, as a delighted Siphiwe said on Thursday. “I worked hard at Stars over the past couple of seasons and I am delighted that Chiefs showed an interest in me, and it is now up to me to demonstrated that I can play for the best loved team in the country”.

When asked about whether or not he is able to come to grips with the fact that he has signed a deal with Chiefs he answered “not really I still cannot believe all this is happening, everything has happened so fast, I need to take a step back and look at everything from a distance. After that it would probably dawn upon me that I have signed for Chiefs and the hard work begins for me, Chiefs have a strong team and as the new kid it is always going to need extra effort from me if I want to play regularly during my stay here”.

Chiefs coach Ernst Middendorp said of his new player “we cannot deny the fact that Siphiwe is both a player of high quality and class and he is a player who will be part of our plans”. The Chiefs coach further added “it was not a plan of ours to buy any new players during the transfer window, Siphiwe was available and we felt acquiring him would go along way towards strengthening our squad looking ahead to later this season and perhaps going into the next”.

Bobby Motaung, the Chiefs team manager could not hide his delight at the club's new signing and said “it took us a long time to successfully negotiate the deal with Free State Stars, I am glad that everything has worked out in our favour. Siphiwe was a target of the coach for quite some time and I am sure Siphiwe will add a lot of value to our team”.

Siphiwe Tshabalala Profile

Name: Siphiwe Tshabalala


Date of birth: 25th September 1984


Place of Birth: Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa


Previous Teams: Kaizer Chiefs Juniors, Alexandra United, Free State Stars