Celebrity owners seeking a new business venture, state-backed organizations, private consortiums, and wealthy investors have all built football teams. Then there is Orbit College FC, a team from Rustenburg in the North West Province of South Africa that is essentially owned by a public technical and vocational education and training institution. The players’ jerseys bear the name of this same college. This ownership structure, which is practically unique in the professional game, reveals a significant aspect of the club’s origins.
The South African Department of Higher Education and Training’s state-run ORBIT TVET College is the official owner and operator of Orbit College FC. Dika Mokoena, the club’s chairman, is also the college’s principal, so the man in charge of the football team also manages a school with several campuses spread throughout the North West Province. It’s an arrangement that would seem unrealistic if you created it, but here it is, operating precisely that way.
In 2009, the club was founded as a campus team by then-principal Maryna Marais and Deputy Principal Academic Tumisang Mosito. What started on college grounds in Rustenburg, where the Magaliesberg mountains frame the skyline to the south and the red dust settles early in the afternoons, eventually developed into something that no one at the institution could have fully predicted. They advanced through the SAFA Second Division, were promoted to the National First Division in 2023, and then, at the conclusion of the 2024–2025 season, made it to the Betway Premiership, South Africa’s top division, making history as the first North West Province club to play in the first division in seven years.
Pogiso Makhoye, the head coach, was raised in the same institutional setting. While working full-time as an IT manager at the TVET college, he guided the team to the Premiership. He has discussed juggling both responsibilities in public, saying that his technical staff is competent enough to conduct sessions without his constant physical presence. It’s debatable whether that strategy can be sustained at the highest level, but for at least one season, the model worked well enough to get South African club football to the top level.
The relationship between the Orlando Pirates and the Khoza family is another theme that runs through the Orbit College narrative. Makhoye has been candid about being mentored by Mpumi and Nkosana Khoza, and the club’s success in navigating the professional environment is believed to have benefited from the advice of one of the most influential families in South African football. Although the official institutional ownership through the TVET college is still the more documented arrangement, Wikipedia states that the Orlando Pirates are the club’s owners. It is evident that Orbit College gained access to a network that clubs from the North West Province seldom get to use thanks to the Pirates connection, whether it be operational, financial, or mentorship-based.
With two games left in their promotion season, the club also received an R1 million sponsorship from the North West provincial government, indicating that the local government valued supporting their ascent. It’s important to remember that their path to the Premiership was contentious in and of itself. Before Orbit’s status was confirmed, Cape Town City challenged the playoff result through legal channels, dragging the matter through SAFA and PSL procedures. Looking back, it seems like this team had to defend its eligibility for the entirety of its first season in the top division. After one season, they ended their Premiership career with 24 points after finishing 16th and being demoted. However, the plot is already too complex and lengthy for a single season.
