PIC: Nedbank Cup trophy

The Nedbank Cup is regarded as South Africa’s premier knockout competition and the only tournament that gives players from amateur teams the chance to rub shoulders with the country’s best footballers and top clubs. The draw for the Last 32 for the 2025 edition will take place on Thursday, when the teams will learn their first round opponents and begin the path to glory.

The history of the competition, the oldest of South Africa’s current domestic cups and now in its 54^th year, is littered with David vs Goliath moments in which teams from the amateur ranks have stunned so-called elite clubs.

It is a competition that brings prestige and, for the teams from the lower leagues, exposure on a national scale to showcase the talent within their squads.

The field for the first round is made up of 32 clubs, half of which gain automatic entry as members of the Betway Premiership, the top division in South African football.

There are eight teams from the second-tier Motsepe Foundation Championship (MFC) and a further eight from the league structures administered by the South African Football Association (SAFA) – either the ABC Motsepe League (third-tier) or the SAB Regional League (fourth-tier).

The latter especially is considered grassroots football but even in the ABC Motsepe League the vast majority of the players carry the ‘amateur’ tag, and dream of making it as a professional one day.
The Nedbank Cup affords them this opportunity to rub shoulders with professionals and perhaps catch the eye, making a quick elevation into the elite league, as has happened on countless occasions before.

The eight sides from the NFD are determined by a preliminary round that took place in December.

It pitted the 16 teams from the second-tier against one-another in a single leg knockout game, with the winners advancing to the Nedbank Cup Last 32.

The preliminary round for this year’s tournament took place on December 3-4, 2024 and saw 13 goals scored in the eight matches.

The following clubs emerged winners – Baroka FC, Cape Town Spurs, Durban City, Hungry Lions, Kruger United, Milford FC, Pretoria Callies and Venda FC. They will take their place in Thursday’s draw and hope to advance deep into the competition. Four sides from the second-tier have reached the final before, including TS Galaxy, who were winners in 2019 by beating Kaizer Chiefs in the final. The teams from the SAFA structures that are competing in the Last 32 have had a much longer road to the first round.

They can play up to nine matches in the preliminary stages over three months as they compete against teams from around their province to earn the right to be the top club from their region in the Nedbank Cup.

But as South Africa has nine provinces and there are only eight places available for Nedbank Cup teams, it means that one province loses out each year. The qualifiers for this year are all from the ABC Motsepe League, with several making their debut. The eight teams are CR Vasco Da Gama (Western Cape), Free Agents (Gauteng), Lerumo Lions (North West), Mighty Eagles (Eastern Cape), Mpheni Home Defenders (Limpopo), Sibanye Golden Stars (Free State), The Bees (Mpumalanga) and Umvoti FC (KwaZulu-Natal). Only CR Vasco Da Gama, Mpheni Home Defenders, Sibanye Golden Stars and Umvoti FC have appeared in the Nedbank Cup before.

Once the competition proper gets under way the tournament is played in a straight knockout format with no seeded draws.

Matches are played over a single leg with extra-time and a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners if the teams cannot be separated on the scoreboard. There are five founds – Last 32, last 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and final.

The winner of the Nedbank Cup this year will be entered into the 2025-26 CAF Confederation Cup, where they will fly the country’s flag on the African continent. Should they have already qualified for the CAF Champions League, the place in the Confederation Cup will go to the Nedbank Cup runner-up.

If both clubs have qualified for the Champions League (as happened in 2024 with Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates), then the slot goes to the team that finishes fourth in the Betway Premiership.